Poetry of Flesh

Going public, changing blog address, etc.

2010-09-14T22:15:00.000-07:00

Well, this is six different types of sexy.

Purple is not my favorite color, by the by. Just happens to be what I liked for the website. I may change it in the future. We'll see what happens.

And, look at this, for about ten years now I said I would eventually get my own site, own blog, set up. Host it, run it, design it. And for ten years I never did it. A decade. Christ.

And here we are.

Feels anti-climatic.

Likely, just like everything else, because I built it up in my head as such a monumental task, that by the time I actually got around doing it, the technology had gotten so simple it was a matter of sitting down for a few hours and tinkering.

I'm still messing around with a few things, so there will be a few changes, I'm sure.

So you can find the new blog over here.

2010-09-02T20:35:00.000-07:00

Can't believe it's almost Thursday. I've been so tired, sick, and already overwhelmed with schoolwork that I've neglected posting here.

There isn't a lot to say at the moment. I'm hitting that odd sort of contentment that comes with a comfortable relationship. Not quite stirring myself up like I do, anxiety fades a bit, I end up mellowly moving through, still watching people, but not with that constant alarm at the back of my brain telling me analyze their every move, every sentence, flick of an eyelash.

PD and I had an enjoyable trip up to San Francisco, drove up the 5 on Friday morning, me behind the wheel. Found our hotel with minimal effort, dropped our bags, and wandered over to the Orpheum, where we found some hole in the wall Mexican joint and grabbed a bite to eat before the show.

Wicked continues to be my favorite live show, and this cast was absolutely delightful. Since it was near the end of the run, they were improving constantly, trying to make each other mess up- just slightly. PD and I were delighted to find ourselves sitting next to another inter-generational couple... but only because it was so very clear that it was a hooker and her john. I was leaning over, whispering into PD's ear, "Ohmygod, it's the couple from outside the theater! We're sitting next to her! This is so cool! She's so gorgeous! Eek!"

They didn't come back after intermission.

No, not because of my excited whisperings, but, you know... *cue porn music*.

PD was also amazing enough to get us front and center seats. Fourth row. Fourth freaking row. I squealed like a little girl. Totally did.

After the show let out, we wandered around a fairly empty section of the city, looking for a late night dessert place. Ended up finding a donut shop still open, serving cheese cake (for him) and carrot cake (for me). So we took our carby goodies and walked back to the hotel, curled up in bed and ate cake.

And we finally had anal sex.

It was... bizarre.

I mean, yes, I've had anal sex before. I wouldn't say I'm the most experienced in it, but I've probably had... oh, somewhere around seven or ten guys in my ass.

...that sounded odd.

Anyhow, I've had regular anal sex, then rape scene anal sex, then bondage anal sex, and then just freaking violent anal sex, and the DP, of course.

But it's not, you know, my thing. It's totally PD's thing, though.

He's been having me stretch my muscles out over the last several weeks, with metal plugs, and he's been fucking my ass with them when we have regular sex, so it's no longer a struggle to get two fingers in, but I'm certainly not a four-finger girl. I hadn't quite made the connection before, which I suppose was silly of me, that the sphincter muscles stretch like any other muscles. The more often you stretch, the easier it becomes, the further you can go. It's not like a rubberband, once you overstretch it, it's not done. If you don't do it for a bit, it goes back to the original condition.

Which is nice.

So by the time we actually got around to having anal sex, I was mostly fine. It was simply a matter of not clenching up on him, which hurt. I'd gotten so used to the solid, cold hardness of the plugs, that having something soft (texture) and warm was... almost a relief. Looking back at it and going, "I was frightened of this???"

Saturday morning, we roused ourselves and I walked us over to a tea shop. PD loves his tea (I hate tea, much like I hate coffee). We sat outside on a patio in Yerba Gardens, eating a healthy gourmet breakfast, watching the birds, the wind in the trees, listening to the church bells ring. It was so gorgeous out.

Back to the hotel, we grabbed my car and headed over the the Walt Disney Family Museum, which is a rather large collection of memorabilia brought together by the Disney family. Stuff you don't get to see anywhere else. Handwritten notes, employee manuals, family home videos, character design sheets and sculptures, Walt's original train that he used to sit and ride around on (the one in the photo with Salvador Dali), family accounts, one of the original cars from Autopia. Both PD and I have a love for Disneyland, rather, it's history and theme. The idea made real.

We spent most of the day there, then drove around until we found some food. And parking. I forget how shitty parking is in SF. Ended up at a burger joint just south of Golden Gate Park, BurgerMeister. Fabulous. We sat across from each other at a bar, poking fun, laughing, making faces, people watching. Just enjoying a meal, the company, the environment, no rush, no place to be, purely in the moment. We likely could have been there until closing time, content.

We caught a late showing of Toy Story 3 at a theater near the hotel, then came back and (eventually) passed out.

The morning was what got me.

We had planned to be on the road first thing, hit Winchester on the way down, along with Gilroy, be back in Los Angeles around 8 or so.

But I did my usual: I sat and sassed and teased him and we ended up wrestling on the bed, him tickling me, spanking me, me squirming and jerking, telling him that we really needed to go, then just sassing again or crawling back on top of him. Two hours later, we were both exhausted and, well, late.

I sass. I will sit and harass for hours. It's how I flirt. At the initial stage of a relationship, or when I first meet someone, it's a way of shit-testing them. I want to make sure they can keep up. I want to make sure they're smart. I want to make sure they're socially competent. Banter is an easy way to do this. Once we pass that stage, I'll still do it. It's like poking at a sleeping bear, waiting for him to wake up and smack you. I don't need him to prove anything, I'm just playful.

And PD, PD continues to own me. He's so quick, so funny. And he's stronger than I am. I really am, like every cute cat video you've ever seen, a little kitten batting at a dozing dog, waiting for a reaction.

We wandered around, looking for breakfast, finally settled on a coffee shop called "Celtic" or something along those lines. I couldn't see the point in the name, really. I decided to have a vacation diet and had PD get me two cookies and some milk, so I was sitting in a booth, grinning at him, dipping my chocolate chip cookies in milk and enjoying every bite, when he looks at me and says, "I've never felt as old as I do now. I'm here with my juice and muffin and you're sitting there eating milk and cookies."

It was pretty great.

Winchester Mystery House was good, as always. PD had never been, I just enjoy the architecture, so we wandered around on one of the tours. Makes me wish there were more really good haunted house movies out there. We've got "The Haunting" and "The Haunting of Hill House" and the more recent version of "House on Haunted Hill" (seeing a name trend, are we?) was good (even though that was a sanatorium, not a house)... but that's all I can think of. I need a good haunted house movie based in a old bayou mansion. I suppose they just aren't popular anymore.

Gilroy, garlic capital of something (the state, the country, the world??), was a podunk disappointment. Breezed through there once we realized that most everything was closed and what was open was unappealing.

Ended up back in LA a little past 11PM. Tired as hell. His cats desperate for attention that I willingly showered on them until bedtime when one of them made a bid for sleeping on my face.

Things are... kinda weird.

I'm getting used to some aspects of dating him. Walking into the warehouse, the dungeon, the sounds of porn as he edits (or films). His huge scope of sex knowledge... I mean, he knows so much and I'm just blown away by it. His job is to produce arousal through designing scenes, stories, sound. There's so much going on and so many different things to keep track of.

But he's got it down.

On the other hand, it's still a little weird. When I tell my friends that I'm dating a porn director, they are never surprised. It's not as though most of my friends are anywhere near as experienced, active, or alternative as I am. This isn't exactly common. But they expect it of me, it seems. I asked one if it surprised him and he said, "No. It makes perfect sense."

Never really thought that way.

For all my experience and activities, I don't define myself by my sexuality or the sex I've had. It isn't a big part of my life. What is a big part is what I've learned from it about people, about myself, and how comfortable I am with many things that most girls aren't. If someone was to tell me I would spend the rest of my life having sex with only one man, as long as he was open to exploring sex, learning, growing, and I loved him, I'd be perfectly fine.

On the other hand, if someone said I'd be having bad sex with one man for the rest of my life, we'd have a serious discussion.

So... a porn director?

I don't really view him as "a porn director". He's PD. He's this amazing, intelligent, funny man who really kinda *gets* me. Who I can be silly with. Who I can sit around with having serious, reality/history/ideal discussions, then later find myself being faux-raped over the back of some black leather-clad piece of furniture, then be made breakfast, who will sit and stroke my back and laugh at me when I wiggle in his arms because I'm just happy to be there. We can sit around watching cartoons, eating cake in bed, or get dressed up and hit an art show, or wander around the city, getting lost, happy.

I feel... so much more myself. A happy self.

I know it's not good that I did not achieve this happiness while single, but I did not give myself the chance to do so, between GV8 and PD and all the madness that happened this year before I even met PD. I got to ground myself a little, but each time I did, GV8 would sweep me off my feet again.

I wonder, if/when PD and I break up, how I'll land. If I'll be able to stay single for a longer period of time. I've always had months between relationships, grounding time, but I'm more than aware that it has almost never been enough time. And I think that grounding time is very needed in order to establish a sense of happy-while-single-ness. And okay-while-single.

Whenever I get close to that, I meet someone.

And I am okay-while-single. But, at the same time, I think I could be more-okay-while-single. More me. More like shifting gears than shifting a life. Not being defined in my head as a partner, not having that impact on my schedule.

I remember, once I moved into this apartment, after GV8 and I broke up, how awkward the weekends were for me. I did not know what to do. I was lost. My weekends had been full of him. I would wander and clean and watch movies, but... it was so weird, having no one but myself to take into account, and I had to figure out what life was like when it was just me.

Now I'm back in the position where life is no longer just me and I wonder how long it will be, how old I will be, when it is just me again. Or if it will ever be just me again. I don't mind not being just me ever again, but it's likely that eventually PD and I will part ways, life does things like that.

Makes me wonder how I'll land... on my feet, or on my ass?

2010-08-27T08:35:00.000-07:00

Well, PD and I are... eh, minutes? An hour? Away from leaving for San Francisco for the weekend.

I wanted to catch "Wicked" before it moved again though, admittedly, it's coming back down here again. But I refuse to see it in the upcoming location because the acoustics are so very, very bad in that place (Orange County Performing Arts Center). Also, I really try to spend as little time in Orange County as I possibly can.

So, we're leaving shortly, hitting Anderson's for lunch, hopefully have time to get a relaxing dinner before getting all "fancy" for the show. And I want to get fancy. I bought a dress months ago that I've been looking forward to wearing and now, now I have the perfect setting for it.

Which shouldn't be so exciting, but I'm a girl. Mmm... clothes.

Wandering around Saturday, planning on taking PD to a tea house (he loves his tea) and the Disney Museum (both of us love Disney), and just seeing the sights. Sunday we'll hit Winchester Mystery House, then Gilroy for some garlic, and wind our way down the coast with tenative plans to finally see Toy Story 3 before it leaves theaters.

So it'll be good. He needs a vacation.

School also just started for me. Two classes, dead center of the week. Contemporary Novels (yay, postmodernism for the win!) and Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (not so much for the win). Fortunately, most of the plays I have to read for the latter are plays that PD has acted in, so I'm going to be asking (forcing) him to do some voice acting for me so I don't have to suffer nearly as much.

I'm not a fan of anything written before WWII, I will admit. Just doesn't do it for me.

But I'm trying.

Anyhoo, PD's cooking breakfast, so I'm going to join him.

2010-08-26T22:17:00.001-07:00

Interrupting my evening with a news broadcast straight from the scene...

Post-sex, lying on PD's chest in bed, making out, I feel him twitching, starting to re-inflate, so I tell him he reminds me of a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade float.

He asks which one, tells me to consider carefully.

I give it about five seconds of thought, then answer: the turkey.

"The turkey?! Of all the floats you pick the turkey?? I would've even settled for Underdog!"

I start laughing, he grabs me and goes to throw me off the side of the bed by rolling me over his body, dropping his leg off the side of the bed for leverage.

His foot touches the floor, pushes... and the carpet he forgot was there slides over the hardwood.

I squeak and cling, but go over, he tries to catch me, lowers me quickly onto the floor, drops the last inch or so for me to do a light bounce on the offending carpet.

So I'm sitting, naked, on this rug, laughing hysterically, he's standing at my feet, looking at me, and says, "You squirted semen down my leg."

Sure enough, long trail of semen down his leg.

When I fell, I clenched. Like a ketchup packet (go kegels!).

Much laughter ensued, with him trying not to look amused. Failing.

He's downstairs now, licking his wounds. I think I'll go help.

Okay, you've gotten to me.

2010-08-24T15:47:00.000-07:00

Well, comment moderation is now on. Again.

I don't even know what to say.

I feel like my life has turned into this division of GV8-of-Christmas-Past and GV8-of-Christmas-Future. He's gotta have a twin. There has to be some evil twin running around impersonating him.

Or I'm retarded in my mate selection.

PD votes for the latter, I'm sure.

What am I supposed to say?

I am sorry things didn't work out. I am sorry it rapidly became impossible for us to stay friends. I am sorry that I ever argued that we fit, ever thought I could deal with a non-monogamous marriage. That was foolish of me, I did not know my limits.

But I'm not sorry for recognizing those limits and standing up for myself.

I'm not sorry for getting angry when I got the whole thing blamed on me, when you told me, "You never should have said yes if you couldn't accept the life I lead" when you had told me prior that we would play together, that I would have say if I was uncomfortable with a partner choice. Then, suddenly, it was like it had never been said.

I'm not sorry for going running to PD. I didn't touch him for weeks after we broke up, you know. He acted as a friend, mostly platonic, listening to me, letting me cry on him.

I'm not sorry I did not bury myself in grief, like I had done all the other times you left me. I got used to losing you, I guess. That final time, I think I was already burned out on the concept. It hurt, but not as much as it should have.

I'm sorry I idolized you. It wasn't good for either of us, wasn't healthy for the relationship, though I do not know if you would have wanted me if I hadn't been worshipping you like I did.

I'm sorry it apparently seems to feel like I used you. It was so awkward for me, at the beginning when we started dating. You would never let me pay for my half of the meals. I'd reach for my wallet, but by the fifth or sixth date, you started snapping at me, getting irritated, telling me that you would pay for my meals, that whenever you took anyone out to dinner, friend or more, you paid.

I'm sorry you thought so little of the one time I did pay for a date, when I took us out to Disneyland for a pre-Christmas celebration, took us to the overly expensive restaurant inside Pirates of the Carribean, that I had always wanted to eat at, and wanted to share my first experience of it with you. Being an underpaid college student, that date cut into my bank account a bit, but it was worth it.

Still is.

I'm sorry you apparently got so upset about Roman coming out and thought that his visit was for the sex, not the friendship. I thought that I had expressed enough that I wasn't comfortable sleeping with him since we were engaged, even though you said I should go out and have my last, unmarried, hurrah. He never did come out, you know. He felt he'd be adding to the stress and drama.

I'm sorry I wasn't more grateful for all your help and support when my family started breaking down in late December, and help moving me out of their place into my own. You were my hero, showing up with that trailer, helping drive and unload, helping me put better locks on the windows, taking me refrigerator shopping.

But how long was I supposed to thank you? I readily admit that I would have been paralyzed by anxiety and unable to do anything if you hadn't been there to kick me in the ass, like you did. You saved me, changed my life. You kept me stable when I was the only thing between my mom and a mental breakdown, my dad and suicide, my parents and divorce.

You did everything. You were everything.

What do you want me to do?

I know you're hurting, I know you're not over it. Neither am I.

I hurt. I've disconnected a lot, more than a lot, but I'm still a wreck in some ways. I'm twitchy, anxious, overly emotional. It makes me sad to think of how things changed, and I miss having you around to talk to. Miss the idea of the life we were going to lead.

But it wouldn't have been good for me. I wouldn't have been happy. Or you wouldn't have been happy. But since you definitely have the stronger personality of the two of us, it probably would have been me.

I know I've said some harsh things on the blog, but this is my space, a space you said you were not going to touch. You supposedly said you were going to ride off into the sunset and never speak to me again. But you're here. You're reading. You're commenting and fighting with my readers if they catch your comments before I get to them.

Fortunately, I usually get to them before anyone sees them. I check my phone religiously, even when I'm asleep, I'll wake up three or four times a night to make sure things are okay.

I know it's going to take time for both of us to get over what happened. I know it hurts. I know I spurned you and then I didn't suffer as much as would have been expected. I know I'm the only woman you've ever proposed to, and it's likely a bit humilating to have announced that someone had finally wrestled you down only to flee the scene, though I'm sure you came up with some story to tell those who were concerned.

But I'm just another girl. You're surrounded by them, and I know you had no problem finding a replacement bed partner when we split. And, I've been told, you said you never really loved me, just took pity on me or somesuch. Which stings, but I suppose that just means I was never good at reading you, and each time you told me you loved me, you meant it in a friendly way, not a romantic one.

Love is love, I guess.

I'm sorry I hurt you.

If there's something you want from me, some way that I am able to make it up to you, you have my email, you have my phone number.

You've always had those.

If there is nothing I can do to make amends for turning down a marriage that would have made us both unhappy, then please leave me be.

There's nothing else I can give you.

2010-08-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm sick. Coughing in a very unfeminine manner, I'll say that much.

And I'm PMSing.

And I'm tired.

And PD woke me up at like, 3AM this morning with a sudden bout of penetration that left semen dripping out of me for a good fifteen minutes, tickling me as it ran along my skin.

So I came home, showered, received a phone call from C who was on my street and picking up a copy of a movie (Brick) and some vegetables who really had to pee, which meant I was running around my apartment dripping water everywhere trying to get dressed and let her in while her boyfriend was illegally parked so she could pee.

I had no idea how fast she could run.

And now I'm here, over-warm, slouching in an unergonomic fashion in front of my desk.

One of my friends and I were chatting today.

The topic rapidly turned to a variation of the usual: I'm constantly freaking myself out because I have this fear that I'm batshit insane. I drive myself crazy worrying that I might be crazy. And, on top of that, I worry that I'm just so smart that people around me have bought the idea that I'm sane, but if they really got to know me, they'd realize I was rather batty and promptly flee the scene.

Or, as the topic shifted, that I'm so convinced I have some major flaw that makes me completely unlovable once it is discovered. That as soon as someone gets to know me well enough, they'd, like mentioned above, bolt out of a combination of disgust, terror, and disdain.

Unfortunately, I am not sure what this major flaw is. My friend says my major flaw is thinking that I have some major flaw that makes me ultimately unlovable.

He said it was like a psychosomatic thing, except it should be termed psychopsychotic.

Which was quite witty of him.

He's a witty dude.

But he's not wrong. I do believe there's something quite wrong with me that makes me unworthy of another's romantic affection. I've been slowly getting over the platonic affection thing, so much better than I was. Don't know how that happened, only that it did.

Now, I'm all about self-improvement and growth through self-analysis. And I'm usually pretty on top of my whackjobbery. But I have yet to find something within me, some particular piece of myself, that I am socially suppressing through twenty-six years of training, to the point where I don't even know what it is, to work on. I don't know what I think is ultimately "wrong" with me.

Only that I think, on a very base level, that something is wrong. Massively wrong. Wrong enough that others would turn their nose up at me and trot quite quickly in the opposite direction.

Which makes me wonder where this came from, where it's going, and what I have to do to stop it.

Anyhow, my friend asked me to write a post about the things I like about myself. Which sounds kinda silly and like something Big Bird would ask Oscar the Grouch to do over the course of the episode. But when I thought about what I would say, I started either drawing blanks or waving away the things that would be considered "good qualities" as things that I was born into, things that weren't that difficult, things that didn't really matter to me as much as other people.

It was interesting to watch my brain balk when I tried to have what most normal people do: a passing level of ego.

Will have to work on that.

2010-08-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

Slowly working on the new site. And, really, it's not that slow. I need the header art completed, to select a picture for the "About" section, post a little blurb in the "About" section, and it's basically good to go.

I've been telling myself since I was, oh, 17 or so, that I would get my own website, my own domain. I'd flip through html books (you know, back in the day), had little mini-pages hosted on sites like Homestead and Angelfire (are those even still around?) and tell myself that I'd figure out the whole "website thing"... eventually.

It's one of the many things I kept telling myself I was going to do, but never did.

I used to have a lot of those.

I'm getting better about accomplishing goals, even ones that have so little impact on "the greater good" of my life, such as a personal writing website.

I think it's more about conquering mental hurdles. The things that tell me that I just can't do certain things, that I'll fail, that I'm not smart enough, competent enough, I don't deserve to accomplish certain things, that there simply is no point.

Most of my hurdles are mental, really. Some people have financial hurdles and, yes, to a degree I have those. Other have physical ones, or ones of a lack of experience, a lack of education. I have none of those.

At the moment, anyway. I may be attacked by a rogue woodchipper at the BBQ this evening.

PD is currently out on a set somewhere, slowly, slowly working his way through the second scene of the day- or so I hope. He finished, mostly, with one of the two movies he was working on, yesterday. Big relief. He had gone something like 76 hours without sleep trying to make a deadline. We drove around San Gabriel Valley last night, to pick up a check and get dinner, the top down on his convertible, him picking on me, me leaning over the center console and gnawing on his arm. He points at me, like I'm a bad puppy, when I do that, and says, "Hey! No gah-nawing!" and flicks me in the nose.

It's nice to be with someone I can chew on to display irritated affection.

2010-08-20T14:57:00.001-07:00

I was raised to stay by my partner.

Better or worse.
Richer or poorer.

My mother was raised the same, watched her mother stay with an alcoholic, verbally abusive husband, unemployed for years at a time, always keeping the bright side up. At his side, loyal to the end.

My mother married a poor bus driver, estranged from his family, with love, with faith, with trust that she would be happy, he would be happy, they would be happy and, together, they would make do, they would have a family and provide for them.

Through her support and love, his drive and brains, he almost made his ultimate goal.

And, he still might.

She stayed with him through all the fits he had. Stayed with him when his depression was so bad he would barely talk, barely function enough to put food on the table. Stay with him while he raged.

Stayed with him, even after he named her firstborn after a brand of auto parts. (Thanks, Dad.)

I was raised with the idea of unflagging loyalty, utmost trust in one's partner and the partnership that was formed.

When I headed out from San Francisco, the weekend GV8 proposed, I remember driving over the bridge, talking to him on my cell phone.

I asked him why he wanted to marry me, aside from his "I'm the whole package" schtick.

He said that we trusted each other, respected each other, that he saw my mother and father together and if I a) aged half as well as she did, he'd be thrilled and b) was just as loyal to him as my mother is to my father, that's what he wanted. And he said he knew I'd never lie to him.

Loyalty. Respect. Honesty. Graceful descent into old age.

Loyalty.

He brought that up many times over the weekend. That I was loyal. That my mother was loyal.

Most men, I know, would take that as sexual loyalty. A lack of straying. And maybe he did as well, as much as he wanted a sexually open relationship, I'd like to think that both of us were quite aware that I only ever need the person I'm seeing, only ever want the person I'm seeing, once I'm in a relationship.

He wanted my loyalty.

He had my loyalty.

But I still remember that dinner with my family, celebrating our engagement. I still remember him sitting there, big alpha dog, grinding in the point that he was now sterile, that my mother would not be having grandkids like she so desired. He wouldn't leave it alone. I watched the look of pain on her face. She already knew, I had already told her, discussed it with her. But he had to, I don't know, had to make it even more real.

Like a vasectomy wasn't enough.

When she walked away to get something, I asked him why he did that, why he wouldn't stop. He told me he wanted to make sure she knew.

Of course she knew.

Everyone knew. This had been discussed time and time again since he had his vascetomy while we were dating.

It did not need to be done. He was not the one who would need to do it, if it had been an issue. That should have been my job, my call on how to handle it.

My loyalty remains with my family.

And when some middle-aged punk decides to dismiss everything that I've written here because of a blog post done by GV8 when I finally had the realization of how unhealthy that marriage would be for me (and not just because of that small moment with my family) and publicly derides me for being a gold-digging whore, he can suck it.

I would rather be poor and scrambling for the rest of my life than with a man who would treat my family as such. Than with a man who would treat me as he ended up doing. Than with a man who would propose to me on my blog. Than with a man who would play headgames with me. Than with a man who would come into my private space and write a blog full of outright, no discussion, no debate, lies in order to fuck with something I care about.

Gold-digging? I wasn't raised that way. If I was, I would have stayed with GV8, no matter what the emotional cost. If I was, I would have tried to have a lavish wedding, instead of wanting to get married in a park with no guests but close family. If I was, I would have wanted some massive diamond ring instead of a simple gold band.

It doesn't matter what I do to some people, I know I've lost respect, lost credibility, lost trust with some of my readers. Hell, lost some of my readers, over what GV8 did.

I've never lied on this blog. Never intentionally misled. But that doesn't stop him from swooping in and doing damage. Hurting me for hurting him. As if he was the only person hurt in the whole debacle.

Doesn't matter.

Shouldn't matter.

When I told Rick how GV8 apparently wrote that I made him pay for every meal, he burst out laughing, exclaiming, "You?!" and falling back into laughter.

It's the people who know me, the friends I've had over the years, the ex-boyfriends, the ex-lovers, they know. They anchor me down to reality. They remind me that I am known to them, that my values, as odd as they are, are known.

I never thought my reputation would matter to me so much. But now... I know I have one. Where I stand, who I am, is known. And I like what is said about me, what is believed about me, by those who I keep in my life.

Loyalty. Family. Honesty.

I will give myself, I know this. I will give everything to the person I am with.

But now I know I have enough awareness to pull away when something will truly damage me.

2010-08-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

I've been doing more watching than commenting lately on the evo-psych blogs (which is normal, really). There's been a heavy focus in the last week, heavier than usual, I mean, on female promiscuity.

I remember reading a post on the idea that sluthood was achieved when a certain number of partners was reached, and I commented that, no, there isn't a number. That I've met girls with a grand total of five partners that were sluttier than girls with a partner count in the 20s, or my "amazing" partner count in the mid-70s.

Derision followed.

So I sat there, staring at the computer, wondering why I was unable to communicate this simple idea.

Because, when it comes to sexuality, most people are very black and white.

And a person's partner count defines, of course, who they are. Like a character leveling up in a video game, achieving talents, experience points, whatever. An overarching drive to a universal idea of mega-slut that all girls end up at. That you can tell a girl's partner count, especially if it is high, just by interacting with her.

I've said this all before, in here and in comments on other blogs.

For many people, it is the behavior that defines a person.

Which I think is a dramatic demonstration of a lack of experience on their part.

I do not believe we are what we do. Which, I suppose, is very un-American of me.

I believe that what is more important than a behavior, or even a behavior pattern, is the motivations behind it. The psychology.

So when I've got some bitter evo-psych/MRA guy desperately trying to be a PUA so he can sexually validate himself in a display of anger telling me that since I have a "high" number I have poor impulse control and am doomed to failing relationships and dating the bottom of the barrel for the rest of my life, not to mention cheating on all my partners...

What a sad little view of the world.

I'm looking at motivations.

If someone has a high partner count and, for some bizarre reason that bothers me, I want to know why. I want to know if it is poor impulse control. I want to know if some tragic event happened that caused them to go on a sexual rampage for a year. I want to know if they just enjoy sex and are aware of safety and their psychological needs. Or six dozen other reasons for having a highly active sex life.

Not as excuses. I don't need excuses.

We aren't "excusing" behavior. That is saying that the behavior itself is wrong. I don't believe it is. I believe that there are healthy reasons and unhealthy reasons to engage in promiscuious behavior, but I do not believe I have the ultimate say (or any say) in letting another person know that what they are doing is Inherently Unhealthy.

I sometimes try to use myself as an example of promiscuity that was garnered due to my own psychological "needs" and "tragic" event circumstances, not as an indiciator of poor impulse control. I either get completely laughed at and called a slut (but, of course, only online... I can't think of a time in life that I've ever been called a slut) or told that I am the exception to the rule, blah blah.

The same crowds that dismiss my experiences as "an exception to the rule" also lump me in with the "sluts" and tell me that I'm "just like all the other girls".

It's quite sad.

I'm losing my need to interact with these people. I came into this scene with a desire to learn, grow, exchange ideas, expand my worldview. I thought there would be people there I could relate to, enjoy, sit around discussing the ideas of desire, of escalation, comparing sex stories, social stories, trying to be the best we could be.

Instead I mostly found a bunch of men of all ages, most of them bitter, most of them angry, most of them hanging onto this worldview they want so badly to be true so it confirms their behavior so they don't feel like losers, clinging to stereotypes for validation.

It reminds me of when I started at my college, working on my BA, so excited to be with like-minded people, with the same focus, educated, broad-minded, and I found a bunch of under-educated, unexperienced morons clinging to their upper-middle class WASP belief systems, wanting to be social workers so they could "show people how to live right".

So disappointing. So worthless.

I spent those two years with my nose in a book, writing my papers, striving towards a degree, understanding concepts that I had to sit and explain to those kids for hours because their brains could not wrap around anything but what supported their worldviews.

I don't need to spend my time around this type of people. I want to learn, I want to grow, and this, this isn't cutting it.

I'm taking my diploma and walking.

This is a typical "me" afternoon.

2010-08-17T12:21:00.001-07:00

Sitting at my desk in a building spaz trying to work through the idea of the death of one's lifetime partner.

So you have these, like, mostly wonderful 30-50 years of marriage (you know, all divorce stuff aside) and then your partner dies.

You know, they die after all this life-building is complete. You've hit retirement, you've bought the overpriced, fuel-inefficient RV, and then this person that has been by your side for decades is suddenly whisked away by a rogue blood clot.

Or whatever.

So you've got these remaining, oh, 1-20 years of your life left without this person that you imagined spending all this "remaining" (depressing word choice, yay!) time with.

But they aren't there.

And your kids have moved out and had families of their own.

And your health isn't getting any better, on average. You could be in shitty health but still truck away for a good decade.

So you hop from senior citizen home to senior citizen home until you can't take care of yourself anymore and then you wind up in one of those homes halfway between a regular senior citizen "home" and a hospice.

And, if you track back a little bit, the last few years of your partner's life could have been filled with pain and you were unable to do anything about it except help him/her get out of bed. Right? Impotent against the body's decay, frustrated and hurting for your partner.

So it wasn't just a happy, easy, in his/her sleep death, it was a miserable, in and out of hospitals, pacing the corridors, drinking shitty coffee and eating even shittier hospital food, watching them sleep, watching then TV on mute or low volume, whatever show happens to be on. And then you watch that show over and over as the days pass, sometimes weeks pass.

And then you get them out of the hospital but, really, they're wasted. More skin and bones than they were.

And you know each trip to the hospital is not going to help them get better, but prolong.

They're almost like little refill stations running rapidly out of gas.

The car is going to stop eventually.

But you keep taking her in and filling her up because of love, because you want him/her not to be in pain, and you've got this hope that things will turn around.

And sometimes they do.

But, eventually, goes back down again.

So, five years later you've gone through the house you guys bought together, someplace either in the naturey-bit of the world or someplace near your kids so you can babysit the grandkids, you've gone through memories and letters and ticket stubs, you've given away all your furniture as you deconstruct this life, boxes and cupboards you haven't touched in twenty years emptied under your fingers. If you're lucky, you'll have an offspring or two there to help you do it, keep you company, tell stories to and think about the good times, keep you distracted from how much everything simply sucks.

Then you take a couple suitcases and your favorite photos and move to this senior citizens' home.

Where you are surrounded by six dozen people in the same situation.

And you're goddamned depressed because you're alone.

And, yeah, the first few weeks, maybe even the first few months, you get visits from your kids, your grandkids, but after you "settle in" and after the novelty of it wears off, the visits trickle to those only inspired by guilt.

And you're still alone. Without your mate. Waking up and reaching for their hand every morning, like you have for the last thirty years, but that hand isn't there buit you can't break the goddamned habit because you've been doing it for so long, so each morning is a reach for the left side of the bed followed by tears.

So you get a cat.

Or some goldfish.

And sit on the edge of your bed in the morning, if you can motivate yourself to get that vertical, and list out these reasons why you should continue moving forward.

And it makes me wonder, overall, if it's easier to live with brief partners, have a life of happiness, and no partner at the end, no one to leave you through death, no one to mourn.

Or if it's easier to go through all of the above, having lost one's partner.

And if, really, for some it would have been easier to not have experienced such things, and for others it was completely worth it, depending on the personality of the person in question.

Where do I want to be? Where will I be? Will I even make it to 30? What will I live and regret doing, regret not doing, and in fifty years, will that be me sitting on the edge of the bed, being stared at by some cat that is decades away from being born, looking for reasons to live?

...........................

The above is why I read other blogs and webcomics at work. Otherwise I drive myself absolutely insane and sit here, like I am, with my eyes kinda like this --> o.O turning into a total spaz, having to call PD and go, "AAAAAAH CHRIST LIFE IS DIFFICULT!!" and then he laughs at me.

Fuck this, I'm spending the rest of my lunch break at Barnes and Noble, reading about hookers.

2010-08-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

My brain has been a bit weird since late last night.

Which is normal, I suppose.

Last night was actually pretty wonderful. Well, it was nice, then it segued into pretty wonderful.

The pole dancing/fashion show... that was interesting. The hotel was okay, the pool was, as far as pools go, quite lacking. But the people watching (lots of women with a stripper/playboy bunny approach to clothing and make-up) was interesting enough.

What got me, out of all of it, was their approach to pole dancing. See, this was a pole dancing competition. And I don't mean a fun, "who can incite the most boners" approach, which is what I expected. I quickly came to learn that the competition for pole dancing is not for who is the most sexy (that actually seemed to be a bit frowned upon), who moves the best to the music (which was mostly ignored, making me question the word 'dancing' in the competition title), no, it was who can do the most impossible looking pose... and hold it.

It was basically a very slow moving gymnastics competition.

Unexpected. Unimpressed, for the most part. I love dancing, love watching others dance. There was one, maybe two girls, out of the entire evening that did anything remotely resembling moving to the rhythm.

So I got in my car and chugged on over to PD's place, texting him that I was on my way and quite aroused (not due to the dancers, thank you, just due to the thought of seeing him).

We have such an excellent connection. Being able to lie in bed with someone for hours and just talk, tease, and fuck... it's wonderful. Tickling, squealing, slapping... laughing and licking. He amazes me. He's such a good man or, at least, good to me. His personality is so wonderful, he's so goddamn smart and constantly makes me laugh, something I haven't had with a boyfriend before, though Rick came close.

It was lovely.

But then, somehow, the topic of money came up. How he is so far deep in debt we now have to lock the gate because his car might be in default. Months behind on rent, electricity and water bills in the high hundreds each month. The porn industry, at least as we know it, is dying. And he's left here, stress growing, little to no work... and I hate it.

I hate that I can't do anything about it. His bills probably hit somewhere between $9-10K a month. Anything I could do to help would be a drop in the bucket. A needle inserted into a haystack with no intent of removal.

I can't help and it kills me. I just sit and watch him stress.

I've always been the helpful one, who rushes into battle, who leaves the office at a phone call to go save the day or lend a hand. Give time, give money, give an ear and a shoulder.

Not here, not now.

I'm useless, or next to it.

Frustrating helplessness.

I'm a 26 year old college student with an income that covers my bills, covers my tuition, and allows me to save some. That's about it. I'm no trustfund baby, my parents have been in poor circumstances since Dad went batty last year and lost his job, I can't even help them.

Where I am in life does not afford it. They, PD and my parents, are in an entirely different income and debt bracket than I am. My debt is near laughable.

I keep thinking I could just speed up the book, dedicate my nights and weekends to it, to the research, the interviews, churn it out and someone, somewhere, will magically hand me money and I'll be able to fly in and fix everything that has gone wrong.

But that's not the way reality works. This isn't a course on wish-fulfillment.

And all I can do is be sweet and supportive, loving and nuturing, having faith that things will turn around for both parties. Somehow. Not contribute to the stress, if I can't take away from it.

Back to life.

2010-08-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

Friday.

Friday as a psychological construction of the 9 to 5er that causes elation. Of which I belong to. Hence the elation.

Not a lot of elation, actually. More of a relaxation.

Going to some pole dancing/fashion show event tonight. Poolside at a hotel in Hollywood. This could either be really great or incredibly lame. I'm expecting lame, so I won't be disappointed if it is, and if it's great, then I'll be all sorts of happy-thrilled.

Was talking with PD on my drive home from a birthday party on Wednesday.

See, I sent an email in response to his email that I posted a few days ago, per his request. My reactions, physical and mental. And then he responded to that, which I believe was spurred by our little unplanned play session in the previous post. We didn't expect to be doing that, but... it happened, and it was wonderful. And it lets us both know that we've got a ways to go before we hit a wall of physical limitations on my end. My brain, my body, was nowhere near being pushed to my limits.

And I'm finally with someone who can likely play as hard as I want to play.

Most guys, as I've complained in the past, are so afraid of hurting or scaring me.

Which is why, out of all my adventures, only one man (Riot) has ever come close to being as rough as I wanted. He was fabulous.

But where I'm going with is this: in his email, he spoke about the urine thing (my distaste for it and his apathy for my distaste) and how, in his experience, of all the girls he's done that with, only one actually liked it for the action itself, and how all the others just wanted to be made to feel like the filthy whores they were.

That's where my psychology and their psychology parts ways at a quick clip.

I've done a lot of things in the past decade. Some have been wonderful, soft, and loving. Some have been incredibly stupid and occasionally degrading. Others have been rough and wild. Really, each experience is different, it's just the degrees of difference that separate them.

While I was walking the gutterskank path between 16-18, before I pulled myself out of my nosedive, I did my best to be used and wrecked by my partners. My best towards self-destruction and destruction of concept of sacred sexual activity. But I never felt like a slut. I'm sure I was called a slut, a whore, a cum dumpster, whathaveyou. Never felt like it. I think I was too busy wallowing in anger and depression.

Or maybe I'm just not geared that way.

What I've done in the past, what PD and I will do in the future, of the reasons it excites me, none of them include that I'm being made to feel like a filthy whore. Cock gobbler. Whatever.

To feel that way about being forced to engage in sexual behavior (whether you enjoy that behavior or not)... it means you have to feel wrong about it it. That something about the behavior is wrong, that participating in said behavior is wrong, that the only way one can really let go and enjoy it is to be forced so you don't feel the shame.

Because you can't take responsibility if someone's forcing you.

So you can act on your desires, keeping your self-concept sacred, even though you are the one willingly signing up for these actions, knowing what you're getting into before you do it, that buffer is still required for internal image stability, lack of guilt, lack of self-division.

Meaning that there is a belief that your behavior defines you, more than your own perception of self.

Meaning that the idea of how such behaviors are viewed by "society" has more of an impact than how such behaviors are viewed by oneself.

So there ends up being this separation of sexuality and self. The ideological dark and light halves. When you step into a bedroom, a dungeon, a dark alley, you shed who you are during the day, and another person is required for you to fully explore your desires. Because you can't admit them to yourself, can't admit them to others, don't want to confess to the things that your brain creates when you're driving towards orgasm.

Many reasons. Many people.

Is it because wanting these things is viewed as some sort of psychological damage? Being touched by an adult as a child. Being raped. Not enough love as an infant. Some defect that to accept one's own sexuality would be, in a way, a devastating confession?

And then, on the other side, you've got the lifestylers that are so rabidly in your face about their sexuality, their ideas, what they do that their entire self-concept is built on their idea of sex.

I think that speaks of discomfort, to be so socially aggressive about anything. A shield, again, for many things, for many people.

On a Game/PUA level, this is can be reduced to a simple need of sexuality, vanilla or otherwise. These girls have desires, desires they cannot engage in because to do so would cause shame. To admit to would be to cause shame. So they fall onto another person to draw those things out in them, to exorcise their sexual needs, someone to lead and control, to center and blame if need be.

It comes back to responsibility.

Wishing to engage in behavior, but being unable to do so without feelings of shame, so finding another person to take on that responsibility. Not just the responsibility of taking action, but responsibility for one's own actions.

He was charming, he was seductive, he said all the right things, he confused me, he got in my head, he made me feel this way, he was so experienced.

Never acceptance. Never, I was young, inexperienced, fell in with someone, I didn't know any better, but it happened, I did these things, I feel silly now, but, hey, that happens. We're young, we make mistakes. It does not make me "x".

"X" equaling whatever sexually degrading term that springs to mind.

So PD's emailing about these women, and he's been with a lot of women, that need to be made to feel like filthy whores, and my brain just sorta stops.

Because I'm likely never going to feel like a whore. I don't have that need, I don't think I have that capability.

Because what I do, what I have done, what I want to do, I feel no shame in admitting. I feel there is nothing wrong with wanting to engage in the behaviors I desire. And if PD ends up doing exactly what he emailed me and I'm sitting there swallowing mouthfuls of semen and piss while he backhands me, hating the fact that I'm ingesting urine, dripping semen out of both orifices, the only thing I'm going to be getting off on (psychologically) is that I'm with someone who can put me in a situation where I am sexually powerless.

Because that, that doesn't happen often.

We owe each other the world...

2010-08-11T12:46:00.000-07:00

So, I've been mulling some things over for the last few months, in regards to this blog.

Looks like I'll be changing addresses to my own domain soon, and dropping anonymity.

This whole blogging anonymously has been an experiment, something I've never done before. The only reason I engaged in it for as long as I have was because I wanted to be truly able to write freely without repercussion, without having to worry about who will read what and take it in what manner.

At this point, my primary concern would be, of course, PD and C, though, really, I shouldn't be worrying about either of them. C knows I love her to death, love her personality, and am constantly amused that we are so different. PD, well, my brain shifts around so much on him, on my future, but he knows that. I have no poker face.

If I was ever able to hide my emotions, gravity would likely stop working due to shock.

I suppose things will change some, when there's a face and a life to the writing. That happens.

And I'm going to be linking to PD's blog as well, because he's such an excellent writer and... yeah, I think he's pretty great. So you'll also be able to see things from his point of view, if you feel so inclined, including the GV8 engagement and subsequent breakdown over last Memorial Day weekend.

I'll also be able to sort my rambles into different categories (finally), so those of you who get sick of my sex posts, game posts, babbling nonsense posts, and wait for others can avoid the types that you don't enjoy.

So that all should be happening by the end of August. Waiting for some header art to be completed, then going to start stringing it all together.

Then you'll have a face to go with the writing.

... ... ...

Disclaimer: not work safe, not vanilla safe, if yesterday's post wasn't your thing at all (sorry!), then don't continue to read. This one does not include urine. Fortunately. Because then I would have had to shower and we would have been late for dinner.

I spent my drive to PD's yesterday texting him and taunting him, like I do. I like that, eventually, he'll simply smack me down, verbally or physically.

So I arrived at the warehouse, laughing at his latest response, walked in, found him buried in his nerdery, cleaning up for another porn company renting his warehouse as a film location.

Then, then he walked into the office on the first floor and came out with a coach whip. Not for me, just cleaning up, as that office gets used for make-up, costume, and talent chillage. He comes out, starts flicking the tip of the whip at the cats (it has a little tassle on the end- think of those long, sorta flimsy whips that they illustrate for buggy drivers in cartoons depicting the early 1900s). Then he starts flicking it at me.

So I yip, like I do, and go to turn away.

Thing is, when you're getting hit, if you can't get away super fast, you have to sit and take it, because if they miss because you're squirming, and it lands somewhere truly unpleasant, it sucks.

Which meant I stood there, squirming with my arms folded up over my head to keep them out of the way, as he walked around me, whipping me- mostly my ass and thighs.

About, oh, two minutes in, my body went whoosh. Whoosh like post-orgasm whoosh. There was no orgasm, but my body reacted like I had just had a major one.

I've never had that happen before, as a reaction to pain.

But I usually go for impact-blows, not stinging ones.

It was fantastic. I started slouching in on myself and PD stood in front of me so I could wrap my arms around him and lean until I got control of my muscles again. I felt like purring.

He let me relax for a few minutes, and once I got my feet under me, I found myself bent over what I call "the creep gyno-chair" (he has two, both are creepy, but one is creepier than the other). More whip, then he slid in and started alternating fucking and whipping until he came.

Thought we were done there but, no, we were not. He got me out of my clothes (top had been over my head, pants around the knees), walked me over to the shiny new BDSM horse he received just a few weeks ago.

Cracking me across the face, caning, wooden paddle, a crop, I was gushing. He came in me again, then disappeared, came back, used three clamps to clamp my lips shut (no, not the lips on my face, the other lips). Then the cold sensation of lube on my ass.

See, we have this problem. He's a big, big fan of anal. My ass is near virgin tight. We've been working on it with plugs and fingers, stretching out the muscles, but I'm still not loose enough to really take him and not do damage.

So he gets out a plug that I cannot see the size of and starts inserting. I'm whimpering, louder and louder the deeper it goes, until I'm nearly shouting and he has to come around and sit on the right ledge of the horse by my face and whisper and kiss my forehead, tell me how good I'm being, as he continues to slide it in. Tears are running down my face at this point, he's whispering for me to relax, to breathe, and I'm trying.

Finally got it in.

He gets up, takes the clamps off my now quite sore lips, and slides in slowly.

As he fucks me, I pop it out. He holds it against me, tells me to back up and fuck it and him. I do, it eventually slides in all the way. Pops out a few more times, when he's thrusting hard, but he thrusts it back in. Grabs the Hitachi, angles himself so he can continue to thrust, but work the wand between my legs.

Too much stimulation, though, either makes me squirt or clamp down (muscle-wise). Hit that point, and I look over my shoulder and ask him to come in me. I hear the Hitachi hit the floor, then he's going for it. I feel him fill me again, surprised he's still got anything left in him.

He comes up alongside me, afterwards, kisses me, cleans me up, smiles. I'm purring and squirming at him, still lying on the horse, as he strokes the length of my body.

This, this is sex. This is touching the top layer of rough sex and I can't wait to go deeper, see what my body can do, what he can do to my body. Where my limits are and what happens when I reach them.

2010-08-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

So, PD sent me this email last night. This is not work safe. If you aren't into rougher sex, watersports (which I'm not, but he doesn't care... which is rather hot), you probably shouldn't read it.

That's your disclaimer. So if you read it and become psychologically or physically disturbed, I take no responsibility.

If you read it and think it sounds like a good time, that makes two of us.

Really, just consider this a guest-post from the vaults of PD's deviant brain.

... ... ... ...

You’re on your knees in front of me.

In my mind, I’ve ordered you to shave, do an enema, stick the large plug in and deliver yourself. You’ve been stripped, inspected, groped, told not to meet my gaze, to speak only when spoken to, to do what you’re told. I’ve conveniently forgotten to give you a safe word.

I pull down my pants. You instinctively move your head towards my crotch without being told, and I scold you, slapping you hard. Then, liking it, I grab your hair in my fist, bend down and kiss you, slapping you again.

I pull your head into my hard cock and tell you to suck it. You take it into your mouth, and I let you take your time for a while. Then I take your head in my hands and begin moving the tip further down your throat. I push your head down a little further each time.

I push down hard and instinct makes you pull back slightly, which is met with more slapping, hard slapping. I tell you to choke yourself on my cock, and you do, moving your head forward. You make yourself gag trying to get it all the way down your throat. When I’m satisfied with your efforts, I move away, and button up.

Still kneeling I collar you; a thick leather posture collar that makes it difficult to lower your chin. Cuffs at wrists and ankles. Last, a blindfold.

I order you to your feet and yank you up by the collar. You become aware of the slickness running down your thighs as I lead you across the dungeon in unsteady steps. I push you back into leather padding and raise your arms above your head; the cross.

Arms cuffed into position, legs open and locked. Pussy wet and exposed. I’m slapping your breasts, no rhythm, seemingly choosing which one and how hard at a whim. You whimper and jerk a little. Then my fingers are in you, rough, pushing in hard against your G-spot, and soon you feel the gush as you squirt. Then, my fingers are in your mouth. You try to lick them clean, but reflex takes over as you feel me slapping your wet clit, always faster and harder.

You bite down and squeal, unable to get away.

More gushing from the smacking. A sharp slap across the face from the wet fingers taken suddenly from your mouth. Then, something leather between your teeth. A ring that holds your mouth open. You feel me move close, kissing your cheeks gently before my tongue darts into the hole, licking your tongue. Then I hold your hair as I spit into your mouth before stepping away.

As the drool begins dripping uncontrollably down your chest, you feel something small, leathery, stroking your belly. A crop, maybe?

A moment later, it begins cracking down again and again, leaving small, throbbing spots of sting behind that seem to worsen over time. Down your belly, your inside thighs, then to your cunt. You cry out as I beat your lips and clit, dancing and cringing, but unable to get away. Then up your body to your breasts.

You lose track immediately of how often you’re being struck, but each breast is throbbing and welted when the blows stop, nipples rock hard. Then you feel a clamp closing on your left nipple and cry out. It hurts like fire. The right one soon follows. Then you feel something cold against your clit and you inhale.

It starts to vibrate and you realize it’s the Hitachi. You relax as the buzz hums through your pussy, groaning slightly. Then you feel my hand reaching back between your legs and feel pressure on the plug. You whimper as you realize I’m pulling it out, and I tell you not to make a sound. You can’t stop a small squeak when the chrome ball pulls free, and then a shout when I force it back in.

I explain I’m going to pull it out and shove it in harder each time you make a noise, until you can do as you’re told. It pulls out hard and you squeal, as you do when I shove it back in. After several more rounds, you manage to keep silent as I ram the ball into you and I leave it.

The Hitachi pulls away. You feel me doing something between your legs, and then feel weight pulling on the plug. You realize there’s something heavy attached to it swinging between your legs.

I tell you to make sure it doesn’t drop. It actually makes it an effort to clench to hold the plug in, especially when you feel me between your legs again, after which the weight increases.

I step away, and the next thing you feel is definitely a cane. It’s hard, bites on impact and leaves an incredible sting in its wake. And suddenly it’s biting you all over. Breasts. Arms. Thighs. Belly. Pussy. Clit. You jerk, wiggle, scream. And then you hear the CRACK as the metal plug hits the concrete floor.

You gasp slightly. Then I’m taking you down, walking across the floor, bending you over the horse. The gag is out. The plug is shoved into your mouth, still hot from being inside you. I am spanking you, spanking your ass so hard the impact thuds in your ears. You almost expect the horse to move as you cry out around the plug.

Then I’m suddenly in your cunt, fucking you. Hard, brutal, ramming my hips against yours, fingers in your asshole, other hand pulling at the claps on your nipples, twisting them, stretching them. I push in deep and you know I’m coming inside you.

I pull out. You feel semen drip down. The plug is pulled from your mouth, replaced by my cock. Your pussy, my come, mingle in your mouth. I grind into your throat again as I rain stinging slaps down on your ass.

I pull away, and you feel something on your clit. A third clamp closes down, squeezing your clit hard. You feel weight begin to pull on the clamp; again, something tied and dangling like a pendulum which turns and twists the clamp each time you move.

A hard wooden paddle cracks down against your ass and you spasm. Your clit twists, your ass stings, you are an entire raw nerve. The beating continues, breaks for a moment as I slam my cock into you, then continues again. Fucking. Beating. Fucking.

The plug is shoved back in, quick, hard, stealing your breath, but more beating follows immediately. Then my cock in your cunt, then more beating. The plug is pulled out and shoved back in. I’m fucking you with my cock and the plug at once. Then more beating.

Then you inhale sharply as you realize I’ve forced my cock up your ass. I take your hair in my fist and you feel me grinding up into you, pushing in deep. A moment’s pause and then I’m taking your asshole, using you. Fucking you slowly.

Your cunt is dripping. I pull out and you feel a gasp escape. More beating on your ass and thighs, hard, sharp, then my cock is back in your ass, slammed in at one thrust, you feel like it’s in your belly. And I’m fucking you harder, pounding it in, making it hurt. Your head is still yanked back as I pull out and shove my cock in your mouth. You suck it, trying to take it down your throat without being told.

Then I’m behind you again, and I shove it in. I’m pulling all the way out and ramming it back in with each stroke. Your entire body tenses each time. The weight pulling at your clit is making you crazy as I brutalize your ass with my cock.

I pull out again, and the clamp comes off your clit. You feel something softer – a dildo – pushing into your cunt. It’s thick but not long, and you can tell it’s been buckled into place. It fills you.

I fuck your mouth again before slamming it back up your ass. You feel the Hitachi on your clit. You know you have to ask permission, and when you feel the orgasm creeping up on you, you nearly forget. You mumble for permission and it’s given.

As you come, everything clenching, you feel me buck my hips into you, thrusting deep, and I tell you I’m going to dump a load of come in your filthy whore’s asshole.

I pull out of you and move in front again. Your mouth is open before I’m there, waiting to suck the come off of me.

I remove the dildo, untie you from the horse, and tell you to kneel again. Sudden light fills your vision as the blindfold comes off. I put my hand between your legs and order you to give me the come. I cup my hand under your pussy and asshole and tell you to push.

Thick semen squirts into my hand and I hold it in front of you, sticky and white. You know what’s expected before I tell you to lick it off. You suck most of it from my fingers, and I wipe the rest across your face.

I take the clamps from your nipples and you gasp in pain as the feeling returns. Kneeling, I attach the clamps to your inner lips and you whimper, but manage no to wriggle too much or move your hands from behind your back.

You watch me pick up a tiny metal pail on a chain which I attach to hang below your pussy from the clamps.

Standing, I stick my cock in your mouth and order you to fill the pail. As you suck me, you relax and fill it with piss. As the weight increases on the pail, the chain pulls down on your lips and you whimper, but you don’t stop. I tell you to empty your bladder and soon you’ve overflowed the pail and you’re kneeling in a puddle.

I ask you if you want a third load of come, and you say “Yes, sir.” I tell you you’ll need to earn it, and order you to open your mouth. Knowing what’s coming, you look up at me and get a sharp slap for forgetting yourself. Looking squarely at the tip of my cock, you open your mouth.

My piss is hot and salty as it fills your mouth. I stop the flow and tell you to swallow. You close your mouth, swallow it, and open your mouth again. I fill your mouth again and tell you to just hold it. You mouth fills and then my piss is spilling out the sides, running down your face and chest, down to your pussy.

I finish, and you’re still holding it as I begin stroking my cock over your waiting mouth. After a moment, my come shoots out, a few drops splashing on your face but most mixing with the piss in your mouth. Now I tell you to swallow, and again you gulp down the foul mixture.

I yank you up by the hair and bend you over the horse, ramming my cock into you. The clamps from the pail fall loose as I pound into your pussy, then your asshole, pulling out and ramming back into whichever hole suits me. You’re gasping in a mixture of pain and pleasure, and I whisper in your ear that this is how I like you best. Willing to take anything from me, willing to be used in whatever way I want. All your holes open for me.

I pull out and push you to your knees to come in your mouth. You swallow.

I hold you, kiss you, look you in the eye and tell you what a good girl you are. Then I walk you to the shower.

2010-08-09T21:24:00.000-07:00

PD's back tomorrow from the land of Florida. Florida Land, as it is known to some.

That last line was a total lie.

He's been gone since Thursday, which I may have mentioned, which leaves me baby-sitting the Porn Palace, as I have come to call it, and his cats. He has wonderful cats.

It's weird, being in this place by myself. Wandering through the dungeon, sleeping in the bed without his company. Makes me restless. I love downtown and I love this place, but it's empty without him.

I was the same way with GV8, and the apartment he had next to the loft/club. Didn't know what to do with myself there, other than his laundry.

Writing yesterday's blog post was a welcome return to an internal theme, and made me realize that, of everything I write here, my favorite pieces, and the easiest ones, are the ones that reek of melancholic sadness with a hint of detachment.

Apparently, I don't do happy well.

It doesn't move me.

Sadness, loss, it flows.

Last night found me tossing and turning. My body knows PD isn't there and rebels. He tells me I seek him out in my sleep, when he comes to bed, that I curl up on his chest like a cat and he strokes the tattoo that runs down my ribs. When it's hot, I hold his hand.

But I never remember it in the morning.

So I roam around his bed when he's not here, waking up in various positions and geographical locations. The dunes of 300 count sheets. The mountains of over-fluffed pillows. The footboard of Siam.

Probably not that last one.

But it feels like it.

It also sounds like a band name: Footboard of Siam, opening for the Foo Fighters.

I could totally see that.

Spent the weekend busy. Breakfast at a restaurant in Newport Beach with two friends I hadn't seen in awhile, but kept promising to fit them in somewhere. Stopped by my parents', grabbed my birth certificate, then applied for my passport before meeting a friend for sushi. We talked for hours, of his girlfriend, his job, my insecurities, the club scene, learning to dance (I am the go to person for lessons, apparently), relationship drama. Ran by the college bookstore to get my textbooks for the coming semester, starts in two weeks, but they were closed. Hit Nordstrom Rack and stocked up on dark designer jeans and a couple of tops. Spent too much, but finally found a brand that fits my ass-to-lower-back ratio that doesn't scream "hip-hop club attendee: droppin' it like it's hot". Dinner with one of my best friends and his girlfriend, average Thai food. I spent Sunday morning poring over old family records on her father's side of the family, gathering information, addresses, birth, death, and marriage certificates.

Odd how you can sum up so much of someone's life with those three pieces of paper.

Our hearts are read...

2010-08-08T17:07:00.000-07:00

I am two arms, two legs, hands and feet, and the brain dictates the flesh.

My tongue has traveled miles of skin, tasting the oil and sweat of men, feeling the dips and ridges of each outer layering.

My great grandmother was an opera singer, parting her lips for audiences through both North and South America, her husband dead too early, she left her only child in the care of other families as she toured, moving away from grief.

I've been in beds across the country, for reasons platonic and sexual, mattresses playing host to my roaming needs. Sheets cold and smooth, wrinkled and warm, flannel pilling up like a soft brillo pad, my body has met them, sweated and slept.

My great grandfather was in the Illinois National Guard. He broke my grandfather's nose with a chair to the face sometime before he passed away, when my grandfather was 10.

These visible reactions, the crooked nose with the charming face, is something that would last in impact, last in romance, bringing him through the series of girls until he married the one that became my grandmother.

My nose is straight, a nearly unnoticeable tilt at the end, something given to me by both parents, a gift that I have buried in the crooks of so many necks, the inside curve of a hipbone, the base of a man's skull, short hairs tickling that slightly curved tip.

My grandmother came out on a bus from Arkansas, into Los Angeles, to find work. She found my grandfather instead, and with him, the left shoe to her right, the matching pair, they created two children that would go on to lead vastly different lives.

My grandfather came out, likely on a wagon, from South Dakota. A serious man, a quiet man, who could only express affection for his wife and daughter- never his son. Popular theory is that he could not stand his wife loving another man, even his own offspring.

These trickles of love and neglect carry down.

When my aunt was young, sometime between nine and twelve years old, she was raped. That changed her, altered her, for the rest of her life. Nothing would be the same, and no one would ever know it had happened, save for her mother, until after she had killed herself in the summer of August 2009, when her husband was going through her childhood writings and discovered this tale.

My grandmother covered it up, from a need for privacy that would pervade her life, a need that I have never felt.

So when my father's older sister took that gun to the garage, she was blowing away forty years of a life she had not asked to lead, a life of fear and bad choices left splattered on a wall behind her.

Leaving us to wonder if the man who took her, used her, had any idea of how much everything would be altered for his few minutes, few hours, of lust.

Lives change in a day.

I sit and look at my dad, now in his late fifties. His family, his original set, is buried together in a cemetery a little less than twenty miles away.

Beloved Mother,
Beloved Father,
Beloved Sister.

He can visit his entire family in one day.

I'm left here to watch, and when I walk into his office, see him trying to pull himself together, constantly at the computer, studying, emailing, reaching to save what he has left of himself, I'm reminded that all stories do not have happy endings.

Some just end.

2010-08-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

So, I'm off work in two hours.

I've never thought of myself as patient, overall. If you tell me something exciting is going to happen in two months, two weeks, two years, I'm perfectly fine with waiting, totally calm.

But when we get down to that finish line, and we're just hours away... I turn into an impatient spaz and I must get going now.

That manifests in other ways, as well. When I have a project that I suddenly feel the need to get done, but it's going to take me six to ten hours and I should space it out, I won't. I won't eat, won't sleep, will begrudge going to the bathroom, until it is done. Whatever time of day or night this wild hair takes me, I'm lost.

So, I'm sitting here at work, two hours from bolting out the door, about to chew my own leg off in frustration to escape this time-trap.

I'm excited. I haven't seen PD since Monday morning. He's been working, working what appears to be about 16-18 hour days trying to get these two movies done. This means I've been exiled (or he's been quarantined) as I'm too much of a distraction and me in bed encourages him to forget editing and think about fucking and sleeping.

But the quarantine is off for tonight and tomorrow night, as he's going to be out of town until Tuesday of next week and I need to get my lovin' on. I go a little... batty... without physical affection.

He mentioned that, in one of his guest posts, that I was crawling all over him in a doctor's office in an effort to offend the populace.

This is partially incorrect.

I was crawling all over him in a doctor's office in an effort to crawl all over him, populace be damned. I need my cuddles. I need them more than sex, I think. If they go sexual, that's just another manifestation of my physical affection.

And we had this talk.

I don't set out to make people uncomfortable (except for that grumpy older group at the restaurant in Cambria who was looking at the two of us with total disgust so I had to stand up, kiss him, and then run my hands down to his ass and squeeze while he had his back to their table and the closest one was about two feet away). The only time I actually, purposefully, use PDA to have some sort of social result is when I'm getting poor service at a restaurant or retail location. Nothing sends the help scurrying on their way like overtly sexual behavior in their place of business.

Observers of my Displays of Affection are completely unnecessary to such displays. I touch, I need to touch, I need to be touched. Part of the whole "Poetry of Flesh" thing. It's not sexual, it's just how I mellow, how I connect.

Anyhow, that tangent aside...

I get to see PD tonight. I'm likely going to cuddle his face off. He has no idea the amount of physical affection he is in for. Well, he has some idea because he knows me, but we usually don't got this long without seeing each other. So it'll probably be excessive.

And he enjoys it. Win.

There's this part of me that... hrm. GV8. I spent so much of this blog idolizing him, turning him into this godlike figure. Because he was, to me.

Then he toppled.

And when he did, he came in here and started making a mess. I had to clean up more comments than anyone ever saw. Some where he posted as himself, some where he posted anonymously. To the point where I was having PD do it for me because I was so upset about how angry and offensive he was being.

Not upset because I was hurt, but upset because he had been so much of my life, had done so many amazing things for me, been there for me and helped me through such hard times, helped me become better as a person, live more of the life I wanted... and then, then when the weekend after our engagement hit, when everything happened, how he acted, what he said... it hurt.

But I understood. I didn't blame him.

But his subsequent aggression, he killed, was trying to kill, that shining image of him I had.

Well, maimed. It's still there. Sometimes I think about calling him, think about how I want to talk to him. And then I realize the person I want to talk to... isn't there anymore. He stopped existing. Died, in a way.

But that wish is still in my head.

And then I remember the things he said. The things he wrote. The look in his eyes at the diner when we broke up. And the lies. That's the hardest part. He lied. He lied to me, lied in his blog (which I've yet to read, but discussed with others).

He used this image of him I created in here to do damage to me.

And he did damage. I can tell.

I know I hurt. I hurt on many levels. And I know I'm swallowing some of it down, ignoring it, forcing it away with distractions.

I know I'm vulnerable, especially with PD. I'm so hung up on him. I think, like I thought of GV8, that he's just the end-all-be-all of men. I know I do this. (Well, I didn't do it with Darkeyes.) The more I interact with him, the more I get to know him, the more I feel that way.

It's a reaction. And it's a habit.

These last three days, away from him, have been a bit eye-opening. I still am wildly head over heels for PD. But I realized how much of my life I give up when I'm in a relationship. A real relationship. I usually only realize this after things have ended.

It's good to know. It's good to have it smack me in the face, that I'm doing it again.

I need to allocate time. I need to not lose myself again.

And, tonight, I need to lavish affection on the man I'm growing to love.

There's a balance. I just need to find it.

2010-08-03T21:05:00.000-07:00

Blinking at the screen.

While my brain isn't going haywire or anything resembling haywire (the origins of the word "haywire", anyone?), circuits are still firing.

Went over to C's new apartment. Just a few blocks down the way from mine. Getting there made me grateful to have a parking space, as I ended up having to park in front of what I believe was a lesbian bar two blocks away.

It's a cute place. Large, lots of built-in shelving and cabinets. Not enough windows for my taste- there's never enough windows. One of the reasons I picked the apartment I'm in now was because the windows take up more than fifty percent of the walls they rest in.

She has so much stuff. Wandering around piles of boxes and clothes, random assorted things that I've never seen before though I couch-surfed with her for nearly a year. I don't have a lot of stuff. I'm not a monk or anything, but my belongings, furniture aside, would probably only need the smallest U-Haul and not necessarily fill that.

Her boyfriend was there. I watched them interact. She had mellowed down significantly, and I have to wonder if it is because of another man she has recently started dating (she and her boyfriend believe in open relationships)... the whole available resources thing.

And this other guy is a douche. I really cannot stand him. I've tried, for her, I've tried. But, as of last night, I've reached the amount of my time I'm willing to spend in his company. No more.

He's slimy. Manipulative. So very self-centered. Martyring. Socially job-centric. Materially validating. Damp. He's constantly damp, his hands, his hair, his skin, a slight sheen of sweat. Sneering lips, baby-cheeked, his hair cut in a slight A-line, curving around his jaw, up at a tiny angle. Too-small glasses. Clothing over-tight. Not because he's fat (not at all), but because he has to have the skinny-fit everything.

And he provokes. And he condescends. Plays "poor me".

I've shut him down twice now. Once on C's birthday, when he was going on and on about how the restaurant she had chosen (start nasal accent here) obviously wasn't high quality because he asked for a refill of his cappuccino and it never came, and he was just going to sit there because he shouldn't have to ask twice, if they were doing their job right. He'd rather go without his refill, he said, that deign to ask a second time. More annoying was that he also refused to ask a second time for a refill he had requested for C because of the same reasoning.

So I got it for him. Not in an obvious manner, but by meeting the gaze of the waiter, raising my eyebrows, he came, bent down, I asked for a refill of the drinks, not loud enough for anyone at the table to hear... and then when the waiter brought them less than two minutes later, he brought them to me. And I handed them out and went back to eating without saying a word.

It was, in its own quiet way, an amusing way of rubbing his nose into his own shit. And he knew it.

Last night, at the birthday dinner, he started bitching about his ex-girlfriend. C spurred this conversation, because she thought I would want to hear it.

After the second time of him whining that he never would have invested so much time and energy into this relationship if he had known she was going to leave him, I ignored him.

And not in a "I'm still looking at you, smiling when you smile, nodding when you nod, frowning when you frown" way.

No. I simply decided that I was no longer interested in his conversation and broke eye contact, shifted my body towards C, and waited for him to trail off in confusion and then I started a new conversation.

Was it bitchy? Myeh. It was a snub, but one that did not seem to get noticed by those around us.

When I hung out with C tonight, she was telling me that Mr Damp was also dating a stripper. He would meet her at her work and, apparently, allllll of the other strippers would hit on him and flirt with him and, apparently, pretty much any girl hits on him if he goes out and, apparently, he gets numbers all the time.

And, apparently, he's so sick of it and just wants to be left alone.

Apparently, I might punch him in his face if I'm forced to interact with him again.

... ... ... ...

On the sister-front, her ex-boyfriend used the key he had and let himself into the house last Thursday morning, 3AM.

His mission was to retrieve some coathangers he left there and get his apartment key back. They broke up around Easter of this year, tried to remain friends, despite his continued freak outs that she might be dating someone.

So he let himself in, went upstairs (luckily for him, my parents were out of town, or he would have gotten his ass handed to him), confronted my sister, and since the coathangers were scattered, he grabbed her phone as hostage and bolted down the stairs.

She chased after him, he jumped into his car (a car, by the way, that my parents gave him half the down payment for) and tossed the phone on the passenger seat. She leaned in to grab it, he took off (squealing tires, according to the girl who is renting my old bedroom) and shoved her out of his moving vehicle into the street.

She called him from the renter's cellphone, he said he would bring her phone back in exchange for the keys and hangers, then didn't show up for an hour.

When he did show up, he wanted to go inside the house. My sister wouldn't let him. The girl who is renting my room, a friend of my sister's, came outside the house with her.

Of course, then the nutbag grabs her, breaks one of her fingers, bruises her wrist, cuts a divot out of another finger with the key he's so desperate to suddenly get from her at what is now 530AM. Both girls start shrieking and hitting and kicking him but he won't let go and since they are both girly girls, neither of them knows how to do an ounce of damage (kids, this is why you spec for DPS).

While they are trying to get them off of my sister, the roommate digs her cellphone out of her pocket and calls the cops (yes, while continuing to ineffectually hit him).

The screaming wakes up the navy guy who is renting the guest room.

He comes downstairs, diffuses, does the exchange, and minutes before the cops pull up, the nutbag drives off into the night.

Statements are taken, pictures of her hands and arms are taken, police go hunting for the nutbag, my sister gets a temporary restraining order.

Once the police leave, my sister finds out why he didn't show up for an hour.

You see, he had logged onto her Facebook, changed the email associated with the account, and proceeded to go through all of her messages and any that were from males, wrote to them that "we can no longer see each other". And then messaged her coworkers saying offensive things. And then posted degrading status messages. And then texted some people, in particular the girlfriend of one of her male friends informing her that her boyfriend had been cheating on her with my sister. And other things.

Whether or not any of this has any lasting impact on her very active social life, it's fairly clear that he's a nutbag. When you add into this equation that he has an autistic kid he's fighting a losing custody battle for, he's obviously gone off the deep end.

My sister, having been shielded from any sort of asshattery like this in the past by either my parents, myself, or her own defensive mental barriers, was not really psychologically prepared for it.

I spent Thursday day hanging out at the parents' house, letting her sleep, looking into getting the locks changed, talking with the roommate, then driving us all to Taco Bell for quick dinner and girltime.

My parents are trying to get her to get a permanent restraining order, but she's balking because she doesn't want him to lose custody of his kid. We'll see how things go.

And, though I was planning another thing in this post, I think I'll get running to bed. Places to go, pillows to visit.

2010-08-03T15:47:00.000-07:00

Watched a good friend of mine tear into her boyfriend at a birthday party last night. Some mess of PMS, stress, and external influence by another male (thatI will go more indepth on at a later date) led this hour-plus long bitch-rampage.

I could not diffuse the situation like I had done in the past, my usual tricks were worthless. I'm not a magician.

So I left.

I know there is a chunk of my readers that believe that people should be treated differently based on their sex. And that some people, based on their sex, are allowed to engage in behaviors the other half of the population is not.

If you are going to engage in poor behavior and expect it to be socially acceptable and excusable because of your sex, note that it is likely that others will engage in different treatment of you due to your sex.

What she did last night, as much as I care for her, was inexcusable behavior for anyone, male or female.

Tonight I'm going to sit her down, try to get to the root of her increasingly aggressive and disrespectful behavior towards someone she says she loves so much, and we'll see what happens. Might be short a friend tomorrow.

Meddling behavior? I know. But I would expect her to sit me down and smack the shit out of me if I was acting as she was. It's an unspoken reality pact: "You're being a bitch. Knock it off."

2010-08-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

I'm fairly exhausted.

Weekend was good. Left Saturday morning, grabbed breakfast at a place in the Valley, ran by the abandoned refinery in ***** where we found a piece of guerilla art to take home (win!) and managed to set off some very loud alarms. Tooled around at the Santa Barbara Mission, grabbed dinner at Stearn's Wharf, headed over the the concert which was not well advertised, so it was almost more of a private show. The opening band was -amazing-, I was quite pleased.

Sunday found us driving up PCH to stop in Cambria to see Nit Wit Ridge, then up to Hearst Castle for a late afternoon tour.

Realized, between a conversation PD and I had on the bus down from the castle and a blog post I stumbled across this morning, that part of love, for me, is the comfortability to show my happiness and confidence with sincerity. I often put on a tough girl front, or at least I try, but, as PD notes, I'm quite soft and squishy inside. I play confident so much, so easily, because it's what I do to survive.

And I'm more than willing to talk about my discomforts, my embarassments, my unhappy truths with near anyone without needing any level of trust or comfort with them... but when it comes to self-worth, happiness, dreams... I can't. I need that safety. That trust.

Probably means more than my surface thoughts on the matter.

2010-07-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

In an odd turn of events, my sister's ex-boyfriend got into my parents' house on Wednesday night and attacked her.

PD is now telling me that he suspects the women in our family have a superpower of making men go insane over long-term vaginal exposure.

I can't really argue with that.

As a side note, lost two public followers in the last two days. Wondering if that's just due to unrelated lifestyle/reading purges or if it's due to this blog suddenly not being about me mooning over GV8, apparently betraying him, losing loyalty, being a woman of easily swayed emotions to so easily leave him and start to love another.

It's not something I find thrilling.

I'm not given to love easily, not romantic love. Nor do I flit from one man to the next. Serial monogamist, yes, but I tend to have months and months between relationships. I've never had so quick a turn around, have not ever left a man for someone else, have not cheated on a partner since I was 17.

Trying not to look too down on myself for meeting PD and swooning over him so easily. It's hard, it's weird, it's not very me.

But, on the other hand, it is the way it is. I met him when I was recovering from GV8 leaving me yet again, met him before GV8 decided to come back and claim me, was already blushing and giggly over him.

I want to be happy. I want to pursue what feels *right* to me and not worry so much of how things look to others.

I know, I know very well that I am not like most other people. So why do I keep holding myself to their storylines?

And, in another side note, one of my favorite people in the blogosphere, Sistasage posted a link to an article I really, really enjoyed. So I thought I'd share.

2010-07-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

I've been combatting a good deal of anxiety lately.

It's hard for me. I've always had anxiety issues, a mix between a chemical imbalance and growing up in a household that was erratically unstable. Never knowing when your father was going to go into a manic episode (though we did not know that was what was wrong at the time) was incredibly difficult to deal with, not just as a child, but as a teenager as well.

People talk a lot of Daddy issues, making the snide comments that Daddy didn't love the person in dicussion enough or loved them too much. They don't really talk about when Daddy loves them to death... but happens to go batshit insane a couple times a year.

It creates a lot of instability and, in my case, a constant fear that the people around me will be stimulated by some previously unknown (to me) trigger that will cause them to act out in extreme, irrational ways.

Which, as one might guess, causes me a good deal of anxiety in social interactions.

It has impacted my life in a lot of ways, a balance of good and bad, though, if you had to evaluate the loss of who and what I could be if I could get over this lifelong fear... it would be an overall bad impact.

Anxiety... it has kept me fairly isolated. I spent most of my youth writing, reading, playing computer games. I didn't socialize much, if I could help it, didn't really want to. And because I never learned how to interact with people in my own age demographic, I fell behind. Not homeschooling behind (most of you know what I'm talking about), but behind enough that I feel I did myself a disservice.

And it's hard to catch up.

I don't do well in new places with large crowds of people.

I hate when people get in my "personal space bubble" which tends to have a radius of about two and a half feet.

I've cultivated a social image at clubs I frequent of being cool, aloof, detached, and, I'm told, more than a bit intimidating simply because I do not feel, most nights, up to socializing. My posture, my walk, my facial expressions, body language, everything has been adjusted. And, since I'm one of the better female dancers in the club circuit I frequent, that ability on the dance floor just adds to the image.

I still spend a lot of time alone. I'm not reliant on my social circles. Movies, restaurants, social events, clubs, I go alone as often as I go with others.

As much as I distance myself from other people, I still manage to have a good deal of friends and a wide social network. Going out to new places, I nearly invariably run into someone I know. The friends I do make, I make good ones, close ones.

And since I've spent so much time alone, I've had time to write, time to think and analyze (navel gaze, some say) myself into the ground. And make changes. Fix things, fix damage that I've done to myself, damage others have done.

I'm used to being alone. I like being alone.

But, of late, my anxiety has gotten fairly intense. Not as intense as when my father had his breakdown last December, not as intense as when Darkeyes was terrorizing me the year before that. But enough to be impactful. Enough to leave me jittery for hours.

PD's been pretty good about it.

See, I'm great with casual sex, casual lovers. When it comes to someone I would actually *date*, someone I start dating with intent for something long term, the first two or three months is a batshittery of anxiety. Probably abandonment issues combined with the whole extreme reaction to odd trigger fear that my father instilled in me.

So I cling. I'm needy. The littlest thing will send me off into the deep end.

And I'll sit there and apologize to them, tell them that it'll go away, just to give me a couple months and I'll go back the the girl they asked out however long ago.

All of them have. They've sat there and held my hand, adjusted their behavior, and waited for me to get through my initial freak out stage.

And I do.

Unfortunately, this time around has been a little more hardcore than most because of leftovers from GV8.

As I've mentioned, GV8 would watch and evaluate my behavior, then judge it as suitable or not, never discussing if things were bothering him or he found behaviors unhealthy. When he reached his epic conclusion, he'd just spring it on me out of nowhere and ditch me or adjust our relationship down a level because I wasn't "x" enough to date.

So whenever PD doesn't text me, or doesn't say something I expect him to say, or has a slight frown cross his features because of something I said or did, I immediately assume it has gone into a tally against me and he's going to call me the next day or email me the next day and end it without discussion, without warning, so I'm going to go from super happy to devasted within seconds.

Makes me jumpy as hell.

Which makes me want to cling more.

Which is completely counterproductive.

So I sat down with him on Tuesday night and explained a whoooole bunch of things I had been considering lately, things like I'm afraid he's going to "surprise" me like GV8 did. That I'm getting too emotional over him too fast and it'll chase him off. That maybe he'll realize he needs time to recover from his ex. That I'm being so self-centered about all of this and he's got his own issues going on and I'm not taking them into consideration because I'm too busy freaking out. That I'm afraid he's going to realize what a wreck I am right now and he's going to ditch me.

It was a good talk.

It helped a lot.

Anxiety isn't nearly so bad now. It's still there, a hum in the back of my brain. But it is getting manageable.

I just hope that I'll be able to sort through all of this, compartmentalize all the baggage from GV8 and others and tackle it with faith in PD and faith in myself.

PD and I are taking our first mini-vacation together this weekend. Going up to Santa Barbara to be tourists and, of course, see my favorite band play. He's never seen them before, though he loves their CDs.

I'm pretty excited, all around. I'm getting happy again.

2010-07-26T10:58:00.000-07:00

I'm unexpectedly and quite rapidly falling in love.

Odd to say, odd to think.

And so fast.

It took me near a year and some change to fall in love with Darkeyes, and even then, it was never full, never complete. Some sort of half-hearted love, carnival-food style love.

GV8, while I adored him, trusted him, respected him, he did not have my love for near six months.

This, this thing with PD which should be a rebound but never was, something that is nowhere near as intense as what I had with GV8...

And each day I look at him, I look at the creases around his eyes as he grins at me and my stomach crinkles up inside me, an unexpected, oddly pleasurable sensation. A sense of things rearranging themselves, of bonding.

2010-07-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

Hey there.

Well, I'm functional again. Both limbs are woking, I'm no longer forced to sit at work, typing with my left hand. What a nightmare that was, though I'm a bit more ambidextrous now, at least with typing. Fingers are more flexible, stretching across the keyboard.

Still not as fast as I am with two, of course.

It's been a bit. PD has been posting for me when I've asked him to, as you've seen. He's... upstairs...? Maybe third or fourth floor, not sure where they're shooting. It's for a feature, not for his company, but another that's fairly well known. They did some scenes with about twenty extras out in the streets around the warehouse earlier today, sat on the sidewalk with one of the art guys and quietly chatted while they filmed.

Not being able to post has been a bit weird, anxiety building a little bit as things I would normally discuss in here, issues just beneath the surface that I need a few hundred words to access, aren't addressed and fester, taking themselves out on my stomach.

I don't like not being able to write.

Anyway, things fell out basically the way PD described. I was accidentally pushed into a planter, which wouldn't have been an issue, save that the roots of the tree that the planter contained had pushed up the sidewalk around it, so I caught my foot on an edge and dropped like a rock.

Again, wouldn't have been an issue if I hadn't been wearing glasses, as I would have rolled my body into it, but since I fell face-forward, I had to catch myself on my hands in order to stop my glasses from potentially shattering into my eyes, which I barely did. The frames are black stainless steel, I heard the *dink* when the upper right corner touched down, but I managed to keep from breaking them.

Cut open my knee and the side of my right hand, dripping blood down the sidewalk from the latter as I walked to a spot where PD could grab me and take me to the hospital, as I was unable to move my arm out of a right angle.

Fortunately, he had finished shooting just before I called, so he hopped in his car and picked me up. The ER was oddly fast, the nurse on duty fairly efficient, though the x-ray tech left a good deal to be desired. They couldn't tell by the x-ray if the bone was broken or not, as I was unable to straighten my arm, even with the Vicoden in my system my muscles would not release enough.

So PD bundled me into his car, we stopped by the warehouse, grabbed a change of clothes, and headed down to my doctor's, which was a good forty-five minutes away.

Mind you, this was 3AM on Friday morning of 4th of July weekend and my doctor does not usually accept walk ins, so we had to get there when they opened the office at 830AM, be first in line. 4th of July traffic on a Friday morning was a no-go, even on the highway at 3AM it was fairly heavy, so we got a hotel room near his office.

Amusingly, the only place with a room available was at a hotel I've wanted to stay at since I was little. A little pricey, but PD was insistent that we stay there and not crash at my parents' down the way.

He got me undressed, slowly pulling my good arm out of the shirt, head through the neckhole, gently sliding the last sleeve over my bent arm, me hissing through my teeth, muscle relaxants and Vicoden still not doing enough. He undid my belt, unbuttoned my pants, moved them over my hips, underwear following suit, bra unclasped removed, tied my hair back for me, then made a pillow-mound in the bed, something that would allow me to keep my arm on level with my shoulder, my elbow on level with my wrist. Gasping as we situated it, trying not to cry out.

I fell around 8 or 9PM, I believe. Got in bed at 4AM. I had not cried.

I don't cry, whatever pain I'm in, until the situation is handled. Crying does nothing but release stress, tension, and adrenaline. The more you cry, the more it hurts, the more your body is drained, and if you are draining your body, it has to struggle more to keep moving, and your brain shuts off.

So I cry when everything is over. When it's safe for me to release.

I curled around the mound of pillows and sobbed. Exhausted, drugged, in pain, I sobbed as PD stood over me.

And then I slept.

sCANDALOUS

2010-07-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

More guest blather from DOG (Disgruntled Old Guy), The Artist Formerly Known as PD. Yes, eventually, this space will return to the conservatorship of your regularly scheduled blogger. For now, you’re stuck with me. Deal and shaddup.

Since I enjoy telling stories backwards, let me drop a few details about the weekend first.

I had a generically bad week which turned into a really shitty week on Friday. Since this isn’t my blog, I’ll spare you the details. The point in mentioning it is to underline how glad I was to see Poetry when she arrived at my loft on Saturday night, looking great and equally happy to see me.

I was even happier when she proudly slid my hand down her ass to find the butt plug she’d been wearing for the last several hours. She takes her homework very seriously, this girl.
You can infer the rest from there.

On Sunday, we slept in, completely failed to get out of bed about three times by my count, and then finally hauled our asses up to start the day. Poetry made herself extremely cute, and I did my best with jeans that no longer fit (I’ve lost a lot of weight this year) and a shirt I know she likes.

We made our way down to Venice beach to wander and people-watch. Personally, unless I’m in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic or somewhere equally resort-ish, I’m not a really “beachy” guy. As an abstract concept I love the beach, but in L.A., the beaches are cold, dirty, bum-infested and crowded. As a result, I haven’t been to Venice in, oh, five years?

We had a great time. We looked at clothes, books, art both good and bad. I copy-edited shop signs (including the hand-carved wooden sign which advertises clothing imported from “Katmandu,” wherever that is. I know Kathmandu…). We ate, snarked each other and argued about precisely how crazy Poetry is (I’m gonna vote for somewhere between “Special Olympics” and “Batshit Crazy,” but well shy of “Nurse Ratched Will See You Now.”)

We stood for a long while at the drum circle, both trying to “get it,” but failing on some mutual lack of chemical alteration and/or spiritual depth. We watched a rumored former Solid Gold dancer do some amazing moves on roller skates, which only made me more disdainful of the small flotilla of self-important punks on skateboards whom Poetry was quite enamored with.

Ah, youth. Sadly, none of them seriously injured himself while we watched. (Hey you kids! Off of my lawn! GET OFF OF MY LAWN!)

We ended the day with Poetry buying us dinner at a terrific Lebanese place where only one of the women truly looked like Jamie Farr. Over dinner, we continued a discussion about my personal brand of applied psychology and social anthropology, and the way I “read” people from a distance. Poetry is fascinated by this, and we’d been discussing how she presents herself in different situations.

We talked about how I differ from the ex, how there would have been less hand-holding, arm-in-arm walking, groping and kissing in general had this day out been with GV8. PDA, if you didn’t know, is one of Poetry’s favorite pastimes.

Which segues nicely to the point; the blog I was asked to write.

On Wednesday, with her right arms still more-or-less completely KIA, I picked Poetry up from work and took her to see her orthapædist. This doctor’s office is in a very conservative part of the very conservative Orange County.

Sitting in the waiting room were a thin, young, gay Asian sales rep for a software firm, a 40-something blonde real estate agent trying too hard to hit that “vaguely sexy but completely bland” look right in the center of the bullseye, and a burly, red-faced mid-40s contractor waiting for his wife, a guy you just know was climbing into a white F-250 with a crew cab and a bedliner when they left.

The main receptionist was a surly, sour-faced, Christian, Republican, 43-year-old single mother of four who was every inch the female version of the contractor in the waiting room. She stood about 5’ 11’ and had to be three bills. If you picture the feminized John Lithgow in World According to Garp you’re right on target.

Just seeing a man her age (and aren’t all fucking men just the fucking same!) with a girl Poetry’s age turned her bitter blood to cold vitriol, and if looks were daggers I would have left in a basket. Naturally, Poetry took this as the signal that she should climb all over me in the waiting room. At one point, she even decided to sit in my lap. If it wouldn’t have led to police involvement and defeating the purpose of the trip (by getting kicked out), I’m sure she would have tried to blow me.

The realtor was scandalized. The contractor tried not to be envious. The salesman was oblivious.

Ms. Lithgow seethed hatred from behind the counter.

In a quiet attempt to keep Poetry from alienating her doctor (I was imaging some first-generation Indian immigrant who can’t look a white woman in a bikini in the eye), I stayed in the waiting room while she went inside. At one point I caught the realtor’s eye, and I realized she wasn’t seeing me; she was seeing her husband, who coaches the girls’ volleyball team, and her imagination was running rampant.

When Poetry returned from the bowels of the building, I joined her at the counter for checkout. She spent a few moments harassing the desk flunkies about details, doctor’s notes and appointments, and then asked the nurse, standing next to Ms. Lithgow, to clarify what she could and couldn’t do.

“No typing, no writing, no repetitive arm movements.”

“Oh, good,” said Poetry. “So I can still use my mouth.”

They’ll be scrubbing Ms. Lithgow’s brains off that wall for a week.

Greetings from Jaded Junction

2010-07-07T00:19:00.000-07:00

Nope, still not Poetry. PD again, guest-posting at Poetry's request. I offered to serve as amanuensis, but it seems she prefers I post about "whatever I like."

I think I'd like to start by requisitioning a new acronym. When Poetry told me I was "PD," which simply signifies "Porn Director" (I don't read this blog myself to give her the freedom to write whatever she damned well pleases without worrying about offending me, despite that being effectively impossible) I practically choked.

Surely, there must be something less pedestrian I can be eponymized by... Hell, I'd take Smut Peddler or Creepy Old Pervert over Porn Director.

Enough bitching. I suppose an update on Poetry's condition is in order. Her arm is likely not fractured. She definitely suffered some windshear damage to her aileron, but nothing worth ejecting over.

In other words, her arm is jacked, but she'll be fine. She's already regained a lot of mobility (not enough to type comfortably yet), and tomorrow she's taking her X-rays to an orthopaedist to get the next opinion.

I drove her to work this morning, and when I picked her up, she took me through her old hood in El Segundo on the way to a great little bar/restaurant near the beach that I gather was a regular spot for her and one of the exes.

We came back to my place, had some great sex, and I tucked Poetry into bed so I could go back to my never-ending workload. Last night, after I came to bed, she bolted upright, sat on the edge of the bed and shouted. Finally, barely conscious, she hissed, "Jesus, I thought the aliens we're attacking!"

I don't want to spoil the ending, but suffice to say aliens did not attack. I can't wait to see who's invading tonight...

Public Service Announcement

2010-07-02T02:13:00.000-07:00

This is PD, temporarily hijacking Poetry's blog to announce that she may/will be taking a temporary leave-of-absence from posting.

I didn't do it.

She was chasing some dude with a hole in his jeans around downtown L.A. today, slipped in a planter which maliciously grabbed her ankle, plowed headlong into some unforgiving concrete and might have broken/fractured/jacked her elbow and right hand.

Which I believe is the business end of her masturbating abilities as well, so frustration of all sorts will shortly ensue.

This is my story. I'm sticking with it.

2010-07-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

10AM, July 1st, 2010.

This would have been my wedding day.

In about an hour, I would have been exchanging my vows with GV8 in the park my parents were married in, on their anniversary.

Right now, I'd be putting the finishing touches on my make-up, my sister hovering over me. I'd be wearing my wedding dress, something my mother insisted she should buy for me, which would have been hanging in the upstairs closet of my old bedroom until today. My father would be sitting on the edge of their bed, buttoning up the cuffs on his shirt, my mother in their bathroom, finishing her hair, checking her lipstick, then going into her closet for a pair of shoes.

I would have spent the previous night playing cards with my mom, staying up late, just talking, talking about the future, our plans, my feelings. We would have eventually moved to the couch, the light on the endtable to the left of us the only one on and I would ask her to regale me with stories of her wedding day and the days leading up to it.

My bags would have already been packed for the mini-honeymoon to Lake Tahoe, sitting by the front door, and when I went to bed, I would have been lying awake, daydreaming of a future, of the ceremony, until I was finally calm enough to sink into sleep.

I would have ridden in the passenger seat while my father drove, my mother and sister in the back.

We would have arrived to the park, found GV8 and his family, then located the spot where my parents had stood to pledge their vows, and we would have done the same.

Lunch would have followed at some nearby restaurant, and then we would have said our goodbyes and taken the drive up to Arrowhead, holding hands over the center console.

In some alternate future, this is going on right now. In my head, there are the paths we take and the paths we don't, major ones shoved by emotional energy arching off to peter out to nonexistence when we forget them.

In some world, in forty minutes, my lips will be parting to speak the words to link myself to GV8.

And everything that has happened from today to the night I left him has been put on rewind, backtracking the movements that led us to the now we know.

The now, where I am sitting on a futon in the Nerd Control Station, a cat sleeping next to me, a porn being set up to film downstairs, two tiny blondes and a wide-face eastern European girl, a new model. Listening to my boyfriend organize, offer suggestions, guide, and make the occasional snide comment.

I don't regret my decision.

I do regret what happened. How things changed.

I feel like I could have handled it better, if I had been able to emotionally disconnect from the situation. But how well can one handle breaking up with one's fiancee? How can that end well, how can it end on friendly terms?

GV8, he was supposed to always be in my life. When we broke up in December, he said he would always be there for me, said that when I got married, he'd be helping me write the invitations, helping me plan, always someone I could call and talk to.

But people say many things after a break up, few of which remain true once emotions begin the fade, taking promises with them.

I loved him. I trusted him. I respected him.

I thought he was The One.

I knew he was The One.

But I can't always be right.

There are things I remember that will always stay with me, or at least follow me for years.

Sitting on the couch in the coffee shop, him shoving at me to get my life together after my dad had fallen apart, after I had fallen apart.

Walking around C's neighborhood, phone pressed to my ear as he looked online for apartments for me to check out, as I gave him addresses or websites on rental signs so he could check the details.

Rolling around on the center set of beds at the swing club, laughing and fucking.

Standing outside of the winery in the hills, holding each other.

Walking into his store and place of residence in the valley, seeing the graffiti over the bed, and the night that followed, the first time we had sex. The hours of sex, the soft brown sheets, the leopard print stilettos, the Sybian.

Massaging him for hours, listening to The American Dollar's A Memory Stream.

Him building that bed for me, getting that apartment for me, going out and buying that TV and hooking it up so we could just settle in bed and watch a movie because I was so burnt out.

So many touches to his back and neck, him rolling his skull into my hands, a light groan, always knowing where to touch him.

Closing my eyes so tight, breathing in, telling him I loved him.

Him bending down to tie my shoe for me, outside of his apartment, after he proposed for the umpteenth time.

Laying around on the second floor of the loft, planning our bedroom, our future.

He was... wonderful. Not all the time, the ups and downs, the changing of decisions, the quick judgements and lack of communication. But he was wonderful, and loving.

I forget the things that have happened since then. I forget the things he has said. Even with all of that, in my mind, he's still there, he's still someone I loved, someone I hold dear.

Someone who won't be in my life again, because things fell apart past the point of redemption.

I will miss him.

Twenty minutes to go. Twenty minutes and some dream of me will be a wife.

And some dream of him will be a husband.

So you can survive when law is lawless...

2010-06-29T15:18:00.001-07:00

I needed to save this comment because I spent entirely too much time laughing while writing it.

I'd link back to the blog I posted it on, but I don't care to generate traffic to sources of asshattery.

I'm not going to argue with you.

See, you're right. All women, -all- of them are cum-guzzling whores or aspiring cum-guzzling whores. That's all we think about (because our brains can only hold so many thoughts at once): semen consumption. Even the lesbians. And when we're not out looking for men to treat us like the whores we desire to be, we're planning the downfall of The Great Patriarchy. Of course, since we aren't as smart as men on a genetic level, we'll never achieve this goal, only mucking up the system- which is simply awful and so self-centered of us, since it was such a good and just system to begin with.

Also, every time we sleep with a new man, not only do we lose an IQ point, our morals drop 3.54% lower, or so Studies Have Shown. Truly. And, on top of that, we develop this extreme fear of stamp collections (also illustrated in those same studies).

We also screen men for alphaness. We carry around social/sexual BINGO scorecards and keep checking off the traits we find desirable, discarding the sad little beta men into a heap of tools we can use to further our previously established ultimate goal of semen-collecting (which, somehow, will allow us to take down The Great Patriarchy, though in what way, greater minds than mine will have to explain).

Speaking of the worthless beta males, as women we have this connection with The Zodiac and Healing Crystals which allow us to suck off the sexual energy of frustrated beta males as we toy with their emotions, as the more desperate and clingy these men become, the more energy they put out, which means we'll be able to level up and respec ourselves into another class and put points into archery or short swords.

As opposed to the great and all powerful Alpha Males we search after, to which our brains turn to mush and our thighs and asscheeks spread. Fortunately, since Studies Have Shown that 20% of men are sleeping with 80% of women and, logically speaking, the average woman has a point-based look of "5", 20% of men are sleeping with women ranging in looks from 3-10. Which means that, as long as we don't have Downs Syndrome and have a BMI of less than 35, we're going to be successfully banging alpha males way out of our range, enough so that, by the time we decide to marry and settle down, even Hair-Lip Sally is going to have at least ten alpha males under her *cough* belt, making her a certifiable cum-guzzling whore (Ten men?! What was she THINKING?!).

Fortunately for us, since all women all the time engage in hypergamy, it's quite standard and expected us to subject innocent, upper-class men to our overused, swollen, unvajazzled vags. Which you think would not be the case. I mean, these men are, of course, quite above us in all ways all the time. They're more attractive, they're more intelligent (of course they are, they're men!), they're more financially stable (why would we want them otherwise?), and their ethics and Christian values make sure that they are always stable, kind, concerned, caring, and upstanding citizens, proud to serve at the head of any PTA or country club. They also only sleep with women they love, because they don't want to sully their bodies with base desires. Oh, and they cherish women. Which is why they so easily believe our lies about our partner-count because, as we all know, all women all the time lie about their partner-count.

Of course we lie. We have no ethics on a genetic level. Why should we? Our value is solely held in our looks, which is backed up, of course, by evo-psych theory. And studies. Lots of studies. Done by colleges. Oh, and Science Journals. Important Science Journals. Because all studies are all correct all the time because there is no error in Science. Ever.

However, our lack of ethics does not matter. We can discard morals, self-respect, respect for others, compassion, experience, empathy, sense of fairness, honesty, integrity, kindness, judgment of character, intelligence (ha!) and honor as well. Those things are for men and boy scouts and add no value to our lives or increase our desirability as potential partners.

In fact, Studies Show (yes, those important studies) that women who lack or have low levels of the traits listed in the paragraph above are more likely to be desirable by the male populace.

But this, Very Important Studies Have Also Shown, is likely a socially cultivated trait so select members of the male populace and sit around and moan in their blogs about how No Woman Is Good Enough For Them and Why All Women Are Whores so they don't have to actually take responsibility for their own actions, justifying their need to continue being whiny little fucks.

2010-06-26T21:59:00.000-07:00

It's something o'clock. I'm blinding myself at the Nerd Station Control Center.

Yes, I know, virtually every post of the last couple weeks has been at the Nerd Station Control Center or simply at the Nerd Station Command Tower.

Got my HPV notice from my doctor today, things look normal. I don't know if that means that my body fought it off (which happens) or if I'm just not spawning lesions yet.

Either way, I'm a bit surprised, as the amount of stress that the whole thing with the ex created should have aggravated things, not have made them go away.

PD is downstairs showering, his ex and her husband are downstairs packing up the kitchen. It's been a rough day for him, as much as he tries to disconnect from the situation. I feel for him, can't even imagine what he's going through right now. Hefty emotions. Wednesday is supposed to be their last day here, we'll see how that goes.

As a side note, Mr. Brush-off emailed me last night.

This would be the PUA I picked up about this time last year, the cello player/stuntman/6'9"/yummy abs-open shirt guy. Apparently, he's been thinking of emailing me for a bit now, and finally did so.

And I'm looking at this email, shaking my head, because it's such a booty call. He's going to be in my neck of the woods next week and he's trying to line up some ass.

He was hot, he was hung, but he's too young, and I don't just mean on an age level.

Sleeping with him was the supposedly primary motivator that caused GV8 to end things with me a second time, saying that he wasn't jealous or upset (we weren't in a relationship at the time), only that he thought my tendency/love of pick-up was unhealthy and a sign of insecurity and deep-seated need for validation and that, in his own words, I was sick. Mentally ill. Imbalanced.

That, however, didn't stop him from getting back with me later down the line.

Anyway...

Went to a wedding today. In Hemet. For those of you not aware of California geography and social prejudices, Hemet is to California what Alabama is to the rest of the US, except it's in the middle of the desert. Brought to you by the letters B, F, and E.

But it was a friend's little sister getting married, and he's this awesome guy, 40 year old nerd/angry, yet loving manbeast, and we both thought it would be amusing if I showed up as his armcandy, swooning and batting my eyes and being all "Oooh, --------, how strong and desirable you are, you sweep me off my feet *tittertittergiggle*"

So we did, I did, met his mom, who was really freaking cool, and his sister, who was a little younger than me, and totally sweet.

Oh, yeah, I just said "freaking cool" and "totally sweet". This blog has been transported back to the 90s. Please do not adjust your monitor.

It was a little odd, watching the ceremony, the people, thinking of how things turned out. How skittish I've become. Wondering if I'll ever want marriage again, if I'll ever be able to call PD my boyfriend without letting relationship-phobia clog my throat. Logically, I'm sure I will, just wondering about the when and the why.

2010-06-25T22:53:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a bit.

I know, normally I'm posting a few times a week. I've been avoiding this blog of late. The whole thing with the ex left a sour taste in my mouth, combined with PD reading this thing (though he hasn't touched recent entries out of respect of letting me write freely, knowing that it's likely he'll eventually catch up to the "now" of things is a bit of a stopper for me and I need to work through it).

It has also been busy. I'm with PD almost every night, with C on the one night a week I'm not at PD's place. We spend most of the waking hours of the evening together, then I sleep and he goes back to work in his office.

And... I like it. I like this.

I've been processing a lot lately, trying this pieces out, trying to reflect and see what goes together, what doesn't go together, what theories fit, what can be applied, and what was nonsense.

It's hard to sort out the fantasies from the realities, sometimes.

I still am not sure if GV8 was the man I thought him to be, or if I just idolized him so much that I failed to see his flaws.

If he was who I thought he was, then he changed dramatically in the end.

If I idolized him so strongly, then it was only at the end that I started acknowledging behaviors of his as poor, and that was only enabled because I was away from him for long enough during that last split to get my head back together to a degree, and because I started dating PD, which reminded me of what a "normal" relationship was like.

You know, where partners are equals.

Where disagreements end in discussions, not decrees.

Experiencing that was like shedding off a too-heavy cloak.

An "Ooh, yeah, I forgot this."

And then it came back.

The knowledge, the experience, the things that I said I would never let myself do or never let someone do to me because it was unhealthy and unequal.

I keep thinking back to the party he took me to that Saturday, our first Saturday back together, the Saturday we split up. The people. Gods, the people. The sex in the pool, on the hill, the man pissing into the girls mouth until she fell into the planter, the drunk couple playing drowning games in the pool, her face bright red, make-up slogging down her cheeks like a strung-out whore, the rolls of fat hanging over rope-corsets, the people barely sober enough to walk up a short flight of stairs, the man shoving some girl's face down on another's cock, the blonde Vienna sausage- so stupid, so arrogant, so compensating, the trust-fund baby with the bitch-tits, the Playboy/Penthouse/Hustler/Whatever photographer with the skeezy ponytail, the roaming eyes when GV8 introduced me, the though flashing across faces of knowledge that he swings, so they'll be fucking me soon enough, the girl bent over in front of the bar, getting punched in the back, her grunting screams like some wild beast dying.

This was not for me.

That life was not for me.

I stood there, looking around, feeling trapped, feeling so anxious, my fiance apathetic to my distress, later telling me that if I couldn't accept his party lifestyle, I shouldn't have said yes. Later telling me that he would fuck when he wanted, who he wanted, all I had to do was be at the same party.

I stood there, looking around, and realized that as little as I think of myself so often, I am a thoroughbred compared to the majority of the crowd he was exposing me to, and I would be ruining myself if stayed and allowed the trash at that party access to my life, my body.

I sat across from him at the diner, looking at him, feeling my sadness and rage growing as he laid down his law again. Realizing that nothing had changed. Realizing that I was second class. Realizing that it was no longer love he felt for me, no longer chasing me to be with me, wanting me to be happy.

No. He was missing his favorite chew toy. The squeaky ball. And the only way to get it back was to dangle a deep desire in front of it, one that would keep it there without chance of ever leaving again.

It stopped being "us", it started being "him", more than it had been before.

I want to hate him for ruining it. This whole thing spills over onto good memories like a bottle of ink. I would have happily spent the rest of my life looking back on him, wishing things could have worked out, daydreaming about how things could have worked out, still thinking of him as the most amazing man I'd ever dated, letting the "what if"s run about my head.

Instead I'm at this foggy place where I'm trying to be understanding, trying not to be mad, trying to recognize that he is simply human with a lot of experience in managing people, but not a lot of experience in maintaining a relationship. He doesn't get certain things. Maybe he's not wired that way, maybe he just doesn't have the experience, maybe he simply doesn't care.

It doesn't matter much, though. I've been told by both PD and Roman in their own ways that the intentions, the feelings, don't matter, it's only the outcome. To stop trying to analyzing him and our relationship, stop trying to puzzle it out, and just accept how he handled things (poorly) as an end result and work forward from there.

Now... now I'm here. Nerd Control Tower. Sitting on a comfy futon, cats around me, cat hair on my face, on PD's laptop. I'm with a man who really likes me. Maybe even adores me, in his own way. He treats me incredibly well, we have a wonderful dynamic and, yeah, there are issues. Some of them we may or may not get through. But he never tells me that it's his way and if I don't like it, then I should leave. Or if I don't change my behavior, I'm not worthy of dating.

It's unexpected.

Meeting someone so soon.

And I think that part of me knows that if this doesn't work out, and doesn't work out in such a way that causes me a good deal of pain, I'm going to withdraw for a bit, hermit up in my shell.

I've gotten commitment-phobic. Relationship-phobic.

It was fine, pre-proposal, but now that that is all over, I'm terrified of being in a relationship again and each time some little thing happens with PD, my first instinct is to bolt. Fuck this, fuck relationships, fuck trying to work things out, I can't handle this, I'm so gone. And each time I have to sit myself down and remind myself that I'm being irrational, getting spooked too easily, that PD is not GV8, that he's never going to treat me like GV8 did.

And that makes it sound so bad. Like GV8 was abusing me or something.

He wasn't. He was caring and supportive, nearly always willing to lend a hand. He was good to me, good in ways that I needed.

But, ultimately, it turned into something not good. And there was always that undercurrent of imbalance that was maintained, that undercurrent that let me be constantly aware that I better be good enough for him, or I'm gone. And I better let him do what he wants, or he's gone. Which really pushes home the idea that I'm not equal in value to him. I'm of lower value. Inconsequential, really.

Nothing more than something that makes him feel good.

The erratic behaviors, the ups and downs, the constant testing, the lack of communication, the sink holes, it was a constant battlefield of me trying to keep my head up, me trying to be what he desired.

I don't know, I'm too tired to explain this right now. It's going to keep coming out incoherent messness.

He loved me, in his own way.

And I hurt him. In his eyes, I'm sure I utterly betrayed him. I told him I would marry him, marry him on July 1st, and then I bailed. I went against what I promised to do, went against my word.

And he'll never understand why.

2010-06-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

Hm.

At the Nerd Station once more, my eyes bleeding from the overabundance of white on PD's desktop wallpaper.

White. Eesh. Who came up with that one?

PD's ex and her husband are downstairs watching Family Guy, I hear their laughter from here.

Spent the earlier portion of this evening with a friend I hadn't seen in a few weeks, catching up, watching comedy bits and I managed to con him into watching the first episode of "Glee" from which he may never recover.

Also chopped off a foot of his hair so he could donate it to Locks of Love. Check that off my nonexistent bucket list: brutalize friend's hair.

I keep thinking back to the other night.

I don't remember what we had been doing. But we were down in the kitchen, PD sitting on the counter by the sink, me in a pair of his sweatpants and a black wifebeater, barefoot.

I suddenly had a craving for vanilla bean ice cream, which I relayed to him.

He groaned at me, cursing me for planting this idea in his head. We were exhausted, it was almost midnight, and I was barely functional.

He gave me a pair of his sandals, I tossed my car keys at him, and he drove us to a Yogurt Land in Little Tokyo, me half-dozing in the passenger seat as he handled my car.

Parking lot, we get out, wander over to the Yogurt Land, my hair messy, chest braless, his arm around my waist. Guides me in and we grab one bowl, vanilla icea cream and bits of mochi on one half, cheese cake ice cream and brownie bites on the other, two spoons. Taking turns eating our portions while sitting in bed until they melted together and I passed out.

He says I crawl up onto his chest like a cat when I'm asleep, curl into the place where his shoulder meets his chest. Runs his fingers down my tattoo, that barely perceptible raised skin down my side. I never remember this, I'm always too far gone.

He tells me many things, things I never expected to hear, things I've never thought of. I look at him and it's like he's got a script full of things to say that will make me melt, echo through my brain.

Not normal, girly romance sayings, though he does those as well.

But the baser things.

"I love how you smile after each time I hit you."

"You were built to be fucked from behind."

That latter one sounds like an insult, made me laugh, but when he explained about genitalia positioning, Mr. Porn Director himself coming down from the mount to explain sexual logistics, it made me purr.

When he told me he wanted to protect me and abuse me.

So few people will understand that, truly understand that place, I don't even want to try to explain because I'll just get moral and psychological lectures, telling me that this need I feel, this need I've always felt, is some twisting of my psyche, and that I can be "healed" with love and magical unicorns that shit rainbows and lactate poptarts.

As if liking something that isn't considered mainstream immediately makes it a psychological deviation.

We went out on a date yesterday, went to Amoeba, to see MicMacs, then for Thai before returning home to bone each other silly. For a man in his early forties, his refractory period is quite short. I'm impressed.

On the drive to the theater, my sister called to invite me to join her and her construction worker on a double date. That lead into my mother grabbing the phone from her and lecturing me on getting the hell away from yet another nonmongamous man. PD was laughing the whole time at my squirmings.

But then, the tables turned when his mother called him and I was allowed to answer the call. Talked to her, introduced myself, poked fun at him to her for robbing the cradle.

Entirely weirded him out. Turnabout is fair play, or so I'm told. And he gave me the phone.

We somewhat decided, or had decided for us, that we are An Item a few days ago.

Then, over the course of the last week, multiple comments and teasings, the "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" titles came up. Repeatedly. Harassingly.

So, we semi-had that discussion.

It's certainly there if I want it.

But I haven't technically had a boyfriend since Darkeyes. My ex never declared his intentions or defined our relationship other than by us fucking or not fucking, then by us being engaged.

I never realized how much that impacted how I viewed us, viewed our relationship.

And the thought of stepping into that "girlfriend" role again terrifies me. Especially considering how things went down with the ex.

I really am a bit of an abused puppy. Bad behavior, dump. Monitoring behavior, determine it's bad, dump. Boundaries are completely undefined, but if they are crossed, dump or punish. Never given the rule book until a screw up is made, then punished.

I'm afraid of doing anything that isn't completely respectful and distant.

It's ridiculous, but it does panic me.

And we're still waiting for me to calm down and heal enough to have the "monogamy" discussion. Which who knows how long that will take? There is that stressful pressure of a potential unspoken deadline of healing, of how long he'll keep before he gets fed up with my slow going.

Trying to call him my boyfriend is hard. I'm a tangled mess of relationship issues right now. "Boyfriend" title to me changes dynamics to places that, even when we were briefly engaged, my ex never let us go. I never felt allowed to go.

PD is giving me leeway to do what I need to do, experiment, determine my own boundaries, which no one I can think of has ever let me do. It leaves me feeling adrift, and I know I'm just going to have to keep doing what I want to do, test the waters, then wade in a little deeper.

Scary, but no progress is made if you don't step forward.

What a wicked thing to say...

2010-06-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

Light from the monitors, music from the speakers.

In me and on me, slick and smooth, warm heat against my back, lips against my neck, fingers linked together, soft hums escaping my throat, and the occasional whimper when he ges too deep. His muttered curses, breath on my ear, nose buried in my hair, inhaling deep.

Roll my hips up and around, a swaying move I have always reserved for the dance floor.

But he makes me feel like dancing, makes me feel like writing poetry.

I'm good with words, but I've better rhythm with my body.

Over my head, sinking fast into his music.

2010-06-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

Sitting in the Nerd Control Tower. PD is at the Nerd Control Station, editing videos, while I sit on his couch, an empty glass of Mountain Dew sitting on the steamer trunk at my left, body pillow folded up behind me. The occasional cat jumps on the couch, does a cursory inspection, and leaves.

I was not supposed to be here tonight. He was supposed to be editing, I was supposed to be out in Orange County, visiting my doctor, doing the check up on the HPV that my ex unknowingly donated, then grabbing sushi with an ex-coworker.

So, I get to the doctor's, apologize for the semen leaking out of me (which was an amusing conversation, and for those of you who might be up in arms about my whore-like behavior... a)PD has a vasectomy B)I had PD get tested and give me his results before we did anything and C)I am a whore. Get over it.)

Which led to the question: "So... how many sex partners have you had?"

My response: "This year?" (which is a resounding two)

Then, of course, no, it was how many in my life-time, which is this ballpark estimate between 70-80. She was leaning away from me, so I didn't see her face. I wish I could have.

I, I don't find it particularly shocking. It seems pretty mild to me. Yes, I know it's significantly higher than average. And I know very few women my age who have reached those numbers (the ones I theorize that are in or above that range now are the porn girls I've been meeting recently). It is what it is, though, as redundant as that sounds. I look back at it, shuffle through the memories, and it isn't a high number. I mean, really, think of how many people you meet each week, through work, through going out, through errands, through parties and social groups. We never really think about the level of minimal social interaction we go through on a daily basis.

Then you get someone like me, who travels all over Southern California, who goes out all the time to various different scenes and areas, usually by myself, social exposure is incredibly high. Which is why I usually know someone whenever I wind up at a new party/event. Happened several times at the BDSM party (a few from various club scenes- not too unexpected, and then some random guy I met at a diner months ago). Happened when PD and I went out to that art gallery in downtown.

So she wanted to know, out of pure curiousity, how I racked up those numbers.

I've done this breakdown before:

Sexually active for ten years. Max partner count is probably 80.

That gives me, what, eight partners a year? That's less than one a month. Not extreme at all.

Of course to be fair, then we toss in the monogamous relationships.

So, I've got 1/4 of a year, 3/4 year, 1 1/2 years, 2 years, 1 3/4 years. Not counting the year and change with the ex because that was never spoken monogamy, and I did stray before things became serious, and when we were on an off-cycle. If I'm mathing right (which I'm probably not, if we're being honest), that's 6 1/4 years spent inside of monogamous relationships. Round that down for ease, we're at 6 years, subtract five sex partners.

Four years, 75 sex partners. 18 3/4 sex partners per year. Round up to compensate for that 1/4 year I tossed off earlier.

19 sex partners a year. That's between one and two sex partners a month, seven months with two partners, five months with one.

1 sex partner every nineteen days.

Not bad. And very, very doable. God knows the aspiring PUA out there only wishes to surpass my low "success rate".

So she asks me how I got those numbers and I shrug and tell her it just happened, you know, naturally.

She checked to make sure I had been safe, was going to continue to be safe, etc. She remembered, vaguely, when I came in in 2008, a sore on my clit that turned out to be just a cut from one of Wolfboy's fingernails but thoroughly freaked me out.

I asked about the HPV on her way out the door, curious to know if they could tell me what strain it was. She said they didn't know, just that it fell under the high risk category.

I blinked at her for a moment. This hadn't been mentioned before. When they said they wanted to do a follow-up, I figured it was the basic follow-up. No, they were checking for pre-cancerous cells.

All of my years of slutting it up, I get my only STD from my ex, and it happens to be very likely to give me cervical cancer. Treatment is painful, but since I caught it early, it gives more of a chance for them to scrape and freeze bits of my cervix off instead of simply removing the thing. Parts of the thing. So the cancerous cells don't spread into my uterus, my stomach, my brain, you know, the parts that are somewhat important.

It's a bit of a downer.

Much like the text I just got, asking me if I want to attend E3 tomorrow. Which I would love to... if I wasn't working.

Anyway, I get out of the doctor's office, text PD that I am going to call and cry at him shortly, then call and let him soothe me. Even though he was going to spend this evening editing, he invited me up. So I moved my sushi dinner to a lunch and headed over to Downtown.

A large concern for me is my mother. When the HPV vaccine came out, I was 24 and she insisted that I get it immediately. So I did. She was so concerned that I would pick up HPV and get cervical cancer.

Here I am, vaccinated, yet still managing to catch a high-risk strain. Apparently that .04% or whatever it was of HPV strains that could still be received post-vaccine included this one.

I texted the ex something short, telling him I'd prefer him not to respond to the text, but to be aware that the strain he has, we have, is high risk and to be careful.

Arrived at PD's warehouse. We showered and talked, laughing and teasing each other, touching each other way too much, to the point that we had to push off and let him get to work.

It's so easy being with him. I am... infatuated. Obsessed. Surprised. Caught off guard. Talking with him already about him meeting my family. Three weeks in. Or whatever we're at. I'm bad with dates. This man, this surprising man, is wonderful.

I'm getting emotionally over my head way too fast, but it's like rolling down a steep hill, gaining momentum the more I learn about him, the more I see of him, unable to grab a hand-hold to stop and breathe.

After the ex, I wasn't sure if I'd find someone that fit. I'm a bit too... off. Too many contradicting things that most people simply don't understand or accept. I'm unable to be who I am, in so many eyes. Always looking for excuses, reasons, rationales that tell them that I'm lying to myself, lying to others, that this mold that they've created in their head is where I belong, and to bleed over the edges is heresy.

And then I found this misfit toy, this Charlie in the Box.

2010-06-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

I am on what I may hereforth call "The Nerd Station: Master Control Center".

Four monitors, check.
Funky-ass keyboard, check.
Over-size mouse, check.
More random electronic eqipment than I can ID, check.
Massive three-screen wallpaper of more superheros than I can ID, double check.

...but I have now relocated myself to the infinitely easier to type on laptop, trying to position myself comfortably on the armchair in the bedroom.

Failing.

Comfortable for reading, not so much for the writing.

I may have a date with the couch next.

Ah, yes, this is perfect.

I may name my non-existent first child after this couch.

Let's do a quick run-through of what I see.

I'm... sitting on a light green and white couch, matching throw pillows. Ten tall, fully-loaded, cedar-looking bookcases to my left, along with an armchair that matches this couch, with a podium and small table beside it.

Couple set of dark-wood drawers to my left, followed by the bed, another set of drawers, armoir. The floor is thick wood, warehouse wood, the nails hammered in, heads beaten shiny and flat. The ceiling is the underside of the same, crossbars and firesprinkler pipe running the length. Small, circular lights on straight, thin wires criss-cross at bizarre angles, looks wonderful.

The bedroom only has three walls. The fourth wall, at the foot of the bed, is open to the ground floor. If this laptop wasn't killing my night vision, I would see the dungeon below. The cage hanging from chains from a beam across the ceiling, the black and purple St Andrews cross, the black leather horse, the squareish looking bed with all the tie-down points dancing around its edges, another bed, gothicish metal canopy. Some other things that I don't know the name of. Hatstand full of whips, floggers, paddles, other items I've yet to examine.

Beneath me, out of my vision, a caged area for things needing more security, or simply needing to be out of sight. An entertainment center, massive DVD library to its right. Two bathrooms, one complete, one in progress. The kitchen next to them, some slight sitting area across from that, then the major cage, containing all the rest of the work-related equipment catty-corner, next to the inside driveway, which butts up against two rooms I've yet to explore.

I love the purplely-blue christmas lights that cross above the car in the driveway. That bit of color mellows me, somehow makes this place feel homey.

His ex's old office is on the second floor as well, across the open space from the bedroom, so I can see into it from where I sit. His office is across the hall from hers, and runs into the closet, which is a room unto itself.

Third floor is mostly open warehouse space. On of those empty places that gets hit with sunlight in all the right places, a place for thinking, for isolating yourself, watching the light hit your skin, contrast between building and flesh.

Fourth floor is his sometimes employee, sometimes employer, and his office. As well as the current hidey-hole of his ex and her husband, who will be moving out in the next couple weeks. They're both very nice, friendly and intelligent. Fun to talk to, but I'm still a bit reserved.

Stretched my legs out, PD texts to ask why he's not lying in my lap right now, but off on a set down the street.

I have to agree. There's room on this couch for two, afterall.

Things are going well, overall. Life is... okay. I'm doing better, stronger than I was in ways I did not realize, not even concerning my ex, but totally unrelated things.

I'm growing again. Or, at least, hitting a plateau where I can stop and see how high I've managed to climb this time.

Financially, things are good.
Family-wise, my father is still teetering, but he's holding thus far.
My sister is dating a construction worker, which boggles all of our minds, as I'm more likely to go for that type and she's infinitely more interested in their metrosexual counterparts.
Love-life, it looks optimistic. I'm hoping. This has the feel of the start of a relationship, feels familiar. Feels next.
As for the ex, apparently he's written some fairly hostile things, nothing overt, I'm told, but stuff that would cut me deep.

I haven't read them.

I got the notice on my phone, after the photogallery. I had PD check the contents while I talked with one of his friends. PD told me not to look, that it was just designed to hurt, designed to hit all the buttons that my ex knows too well.

At first, I did not look, did not read, because I did not want to be hurt.

Today, after talking with a friend, I decided not to read because I want to preserve that image I have of GV8. I want him to be who I thought he was, think he is, I don't want to cause that image to rot away. It may be stupid, may be naive, may be me burying my head in the sand.

It would be easier to read it, easier to read it and rage and cry, feel all the things he wanted me to feel, then lower his value in my eyes, destroy and taint all the memories we created together.

I won't.

He's no longer near-perfect in my eyes.

But I'm not going to sink him so low.

I'm going to remember us driving through the canyons, remember stopping at the wine boutique, cuddling outside of the motorcycle cafe on one of those winding roads, my happiness overflowing. Driving through the neighborhood he grew up in, all the stories. The love.

This, these last two weeks, I'm going to do my best to forget.

And I'll keep loving who he was, who we were.

2010-06-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

I have... yeah. Things that I don't even know how to begin.

The thought of writing here is starting to cause anxiety, and since I will not allow myself to stop blogging because of a little anxiety... need to power through it. God knows I've gotten enough negative comments here in the last few days, though a lot of those were from the ex.

I don't quite feel safe anymore, to be honest.

I'd venture forth that he'd be happy to know that.

I'd venture forth that I never knew him at all.

Post-split behaviors translate into a man I never knew, spits on the image of the good times we had, and I can't help but wonder if... gods, if I was so wrong. Not wrong for making the choice I made, but wrong in my perception of him. If he's so hurt that he's lashing out against me in pain, or if, like so many say, no matter how much I defend him, that he's simply acting the upset child who lost his favorite toy.

I'd like to think that he loved me. That those moments we shared, just the two of us, were real. That our perfect Valentine's Day weekend together was genuine, and the love I saw in his eyes wasn't just something I deluded myself into believing.

It'd be easier to think that he felt nothing, nothing other than passing amusement, that I was a good fit into his life, thumped into the shape of a doormat over time.

That way I wouldn't worry over his hurt.

I don't think he'll ever believe that I would have left him that Saturday night whether or not I had known PD.

Because there's loyalty to your mate, and then there's loyalty to yourself.

You have to know your boundaries, and you have to know when you will break.

I saw myself breaking.

I was going to break down the course of the events in epic narrative, from when he "proposed" on Thursday night/Friday morning to how I found myself sitting a couch on the first floor of PD's warehouse, alternately talking and crying.

And maybe I will, one day down the line.

Between the dinner with my parents and the conversation in the diner in the Valley, from the moment that blonde Vienna sausage opened her mouth at the BDSM party he took me to our first weekend back together... it was simply a chain of events leading to the moment where he let me know that my opinion, my needs, my happiness, would never matter as much to him as his own and if I wasn't okay with that, he would withdraw his offer of marriage.

Some people just don't fit.

I finally accepted that, after months of him trying to beat that idea into me, my own sense of self-preservation managed to kick in.

Of course, now it seems to be far too late to save any tatters of friendship.

Many will probably think I left him for PD. Leaping, like so many girls do, from one man to the next. Security, validation, comfort sex, distraction from internal stressors, clinging to endorphins inspired by limerance.

I'm not going to argue that. It's pointless. Many would be surprised that I, I didn't touch him the night I left the ex. Nor the night after that. Or the next.

It was near pure companionship while I gathered my head back together.

Heh, finally free of that chain latching me down to sex as a magic psychological healer. Took ten years, but it happened.

I don't know exactly what PD and I are doing. I'm... really being the pathetic abused puppy. It's kinda sad. I'm hypersensitive to his moods, his expressions, looking for that displeasure, that look of calculated evaluation. Constantly worried that I'm taking too much of his time, too much of his attention. Trying not to get in the way.

But, when I get up for work in the morning, he makes me breakfast, walks me to my car, and then goes back to bed.

And when I asked him to go clubbing with me on Saturday, so he could see me dance, he said yes. He didn't tell me no, that it would be a bad idea, because he might run into someone he knew and want to bang them, which I would simply have to deal with, which is why the ex only went clubbing with me once.

When we brought up how rapidly we were falling for each other, and I expressed concern over his not-quite-monogamy, PD didn't tell me that he would never change, that his needs were his needs, he just smiled and said that we'd make it work. That we'd find a way to make both of us happy.

I sleep in his bed on the second floor. Cats jump up onto the blankets, curl at our feet, our sides, occasionally our faces. Daylight starts filtering through the warehouse windows, illuminating his book cases, his dungeon, his face next to mine. He wakes up and smiles at me, I smile back. Happy. Feeling safe to be myself.

Thursday night, we went to an art gallery/fashion show in Downtown, on the lush patio of the twenty-first floor of one of the buildings. I wore a short skirt, stockings, a loose black tunic, and my usual boots. He was in a dark button-up and jeans, the thick piercings through his ears black and tribal, eyes always looking wicked at me. He included me in conversations, whispered jokes into my ear, introduced me to friends, always made my company feel desired, like I was more than an arm-piece.

Friday night, we met with two more of his friends to discuss a screenplay one of them had written. We talked for hours, I started nodding off, my right leg across his left as he stroked my thigh, talking business, talking ideas, making jokes and ranting, as he does. His friends were wonderful, all of his friends have been wonderful. Open, accepting, easy.

Saturday day we went to Olvera St in downtown, took the Metro in. Wandered the buildings and the booths, people-watching and talking about everything, like we do. Conversation is non-stop. Ideas, thoughts, plans, feelings. Looking into old buildings, walking around in the two museums they have there, reading and discussing, identifying antiques. He bought me a Day of the Dead ornament I loved in a tiny store full of art. Went back to his place and dozed on the couch downstairs, watching movies while he loaded his truck with equipment for the next day. Hit the club where we ran into a tiny porn star, a friend of his, who was quite entertaining and friendly, just like all of his friends have been.

I slept in today, he went to work. Left me a note on my purse, made me smile.

It's good. I'm happy. Anxiety and worry aside, I'm actually happy.

I feel like I should be miserable, but I'm not. I think a large part of it is that I've been put through the emotional wringer by the ex so many times that I've gotten a bit numb to it. There's grief and there's sadness, but not that heart-stab I've had so often with him in the past.

Finally strong enough to move on. Strong enough to stand up for myself.

2010-06-10T19:04:00.000-07:00

I've got just a few moments before I have to bolt again, so I thought I'd drop a note in here really quick.

This blog has turned into a sort of three-ring circus in the last two weeks. I apologize for that, as it was never my intent to have things become so damn dramatic (and not even serve popcorn!).

And I do promise that I will, sometime this weekend, sit down and write the tale of how things turned out the way they did. I warn you now, it is going to be long. Longer than usual. Which is why I haven't posted it before now- I'm still working on it.

In the meantime, for those of you who have been with me so long (and those of you that are newer), please have faith that I did not sudden deviate from established behavior patterns and become a traditional flighty female, pursuing status, money, affection, emotional highs.

There are things that happened, things that most of you have no way of knowing about, because I've yet to share them. Which is my fault, and will be remedied. You've stuck with me through all of this, some of you from the beginning of GV8's and my relationship, and you will be able to read about the end soon.

Thank you,

V.

2010-06-08T23:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, we're running up on 11:15PM.

Lots of thoughts running through my head, very little time for them. Work is trying to eat my life and, really, it's getting there.

Spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday night with PD.

Spending Wednesday, Thursday, and this coming Saturday night with PD.

This, this is... how I acted with Rick. Well, less extreme.

From the first day Rick and I met, we saw each other every day for eight months. Never skipped one. Just happened that way.

Of course, Rick lived less than five miles from my work... so it was easy.

C wonders if I'm rebounding. I was wondering that as well, a few days ago, concerned that I was being one of those girls that goes from one relationship directly into the next, using the budding connection/sexual validation as emotional padding for the transition.

I've always had months in between relationships. Give myself a breather, a time to collect my head.

But... not this time.

Not that I was expecting a relationship, as previous blog posts will attest.

But this whole mess with GV8... I understand now. I understand better, myself and what I want from a partner, what I am willing to forgo and what I am not willing to forgo.

And, PD... he's... yeah. Lovely.

We were dating before GV8 slammed into us, and now we're dating again. Or... something. It's this sort of odd situation where I'm a little fragile and high-strung, but he's right there. Right there with this sense that I know him, that I've known him for years. Our bodies just line up, working together. Ease.

I keep waiting for something bad to surface, like I do.

I keep trying not to kick myself for appearing like one of those flighty girls. This isn't me jumping from one relationship to the next because of a fear of being single. I don't fear being single. I tend to relish it, once I get used to not having a partner to factor into my schedule.

It's weird, being with someone who treats me like I'm human.

But when he's silent, I mentally freak. I'm like an abused puppy, waiting for him to tell me how he's evaluated my behavior, like a paper being graded, the red sharpie descending to plaster "F" across my being.

Then he reminds me that he's not GV8. And I have to sit there and breathe and believe him or I'll drive myself nuts.

Anyway, we'll see what happens. I've been totally infatuated before, and I will be so again. Need to calm the hell down.

More when I'm not about to pass out.

2010-06-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

I wanted to take a moment between things to thank everyone for their support in comments and emails, and the occasional phone call from the rare few of you that have my number.

I'm... actually... fine.

I feel good.

Yes, there has been some crying. Mostly grief, I think. Grief for what we had and what it turned into, the loss of a good relationship, a good friendship.

He was exactly what I needed when I met him. He helped me through some difficult times and helped me grow so much as a person, faster than I would have on my own.

But that's over.

We have, as he said to me a few months ago, passed our dating window.

He'll always be able to push my buttons, make me want him, to some degree.

But... I don't love him anymore. I care for him, sure.

But no love. Respect is fading. Trust is gone.

In some ways, he's so amazing and experienced. He takes care of things, harnesses reality and makes it his.

But when it comes to relationships... he doesn't have enough experience, and it shows. He missed me, he wanted me, he dangled what would make me jump back into his arms. He didn't think it through, didn't take into consideration my happiness.

I mean, he did to some degree. Sending me back to school, giving me the time to write my book, puruse getting my body into its best shape, giving me control over my time.

So valuable.

Time is precious.

But he did not think further.

And he's so dominant, it's hard to not just naturally bend to him.

But there are things I can no longer excuse. Behaviors that do not work for me, and not just his need to sexually roam.

Some people just don't fit.

And I've finally accepted that.

In the last couple weeks, before GV8 came crashing back into my life, I met someone. I actually met someone. Someone I have things in common with, someone I might truly fit with. Someone who is an amazingly good person. Who values me.

Who kept his phone by his bed Saturday night, knowing that I would likely call and need a shoulder to cry on.

Who picked it up when it rang at midnight-thirty, talked to me as I drove to his home, curled up in bed with me and let me talk.

He makes me happy.

End: Chapter One

2010-06-07T09:57:00.000-07:00

Vision is obscured.

Remove glasses, dried salt flakes splashed across the inside of the lenses, deposited by tear-wet eyelash tips.

Fairytale endings are for princesses... and I am no princess.

Wipe the glass clean, look again.

2010-06-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

Quick post, as I have to run out the door to a lapdance class.

Did the dinner with my parents last night. My dad has only met GV8 once, my mom, twice. I always kept him separated from them because it was a)never supposed to get serious and b)I was convinced they would freak about the age gap.

I was exhausted. Typical. Falling asleep on GV8's shoulder on the couch while he and Mom talked.

It's weird. This whole thing has been weird.

I'm happy, but most of the time I'm trying to suppress it because I know if I start thinking about it I'll get incredibly anxious. And, as much as I know this bugs him, i keep expecting him to change his mind.

Because he changes his mind a lot.

Four break-ups attest to this (admittedly, one of those was mine).

I don't trust him as much anymore. He's back in the generic trust category. Trusting of certain behaviors. Trusting him to act in expected ways.

But there's the gap. The pull-back. That it wasn't like it was and, until we get married, I'm probably not going to relax. God knows I've been clingy as hell of late. And analyzing every single behavior and word choice.

I'm nervous. I'm so damned nervous.

And I know this panic is pushing at me to keep things the same, continue on my solo, just so I don't have to experience change. Because I don't handle change well.

The second I think of not spending the rest of my life with him, my stomach drops out and I think that life would be... not pointless, but... horrible. A void of happiness.

So I've got to, as my dad says, put my helmet on and soldier through it. Don't let the anxieties and fears rule my life. I know, one day, I'll trust him again as much as I did, if not more. I know that, just a few months ago, he was the center of my happiness, my life, I was willing to give everything for him because I was so convinced he was it.

As for everything else... we're having a small ceremony in the park that my parents got married in on their anniversary: July 1st. Then we're going on a not-really-honeymoon to Lake Tahoe for the weekend. Planned on having a big ceremony and reception in October.

Next Saturday we're going ring shopping.
Next Sunday, I'm going dress shopping with my mom.

And, in three weeks, I'll be Mrs. GV8.

Nah, that sounds so old. I'll be Ms. GV8.

...and I'm going to be late if I don't leave now. Whoops.

2010-06-01T09:56:00.001-07:00

GV8 has posted his first, and probably only, blog.

You can find it here.

2010-05-29T19:22:00.001-07:00

Hopped onto someone's laptop at a party I seem to have found myself at, so this is going to be brief.

As some of you have expected, and emailed me about, I've gone slightly batshit over the events of the last, gods, I don't even know. How many hours has it been? Math has never been my strong suit.

But I could write way too much on that and my time on this thing is short.

Got off of work at noon so I could grab lunch with PD before I headed up to SF. When I arrived, they were prepping to shoot some lesbian porn. By the time we returned from lunch, the cute little blonde had left and the scene had turned into an interracial bit of MILF porn starring a sassy redhead with huge and perfect fake breasts.

PD and I headed up to the fourth floor, taking up space on an antique couch that was also used in some of the shoots. Naked, rolling around on this creaky couch, one of his long-time friends showed up and was promptly embarrassed.

Before that, though, I was on top of him, talking. Him, trying to get his erection down, telling me if we weren't going to be having sex until August, he wasn't going to let me get him off of my own accord. I expressed concern, as he is so picky about his partners, that maybe I just wasn't doing it for him.

Between kisses, he whispered compliments, about my kisses, about my body, about me.

He showers me in verbal affection. Beyond what I'm used to. He takes time to show he values me with his words, open and honest, even though we're not going anywhere, established from date one that I won't date a man who won't give me monogamy, won't give me children. It's just another dead end in a growing series of dead ends.

But he makes me feel good about myself. So good. Supporting me during this period of development that is so crucial. Blogging about me on his public blog.

Once his friend showed up, I said my goodbyes, let him get on with his business, and hit the road.

Obviously, I arrived to San Francisco okay.

However, once I got there, things went a little south.

I was set to stay with Playboy. A little uncomfortable because he is so aggressive, but when he was down here last, I established social and sexual dominance (so linked for men) and hoped that would hold, even on his turf.

It didn't. It very much didn't.

He didn't care that I said no. However many times I said no. He's so much bigger than I am, so much stronger. He's built kinda godlike and he has no qualms about using that strength to his advantage.

He nearly ripped my shirt off me, pawing me, ignoring my words, dragging me onto the bed as I tried so hard to use my weight to pull away. He didn't care. Whenever I turned my back on him, he'd grab me, pull me against him in an iron grip, hands going into my shirt, down my pants.

Finally, finally I convinced him to go chase tail at a nearby bar.

He didn't come back to the apartment that night.

I woke at 655, showered, my bags already packed, texted two people, and found myself another place to stay. Grabbed breakfast down the street, walked to the mission on Dolores Street and paid to go inside, wandering the old building and the overgrown cemetary until 10AM, making notes on my voice recorder, taking pictures of the things that fascinated me.

Drove over the bridge, dropped into Albany, met a friend who I hadn't seen since February 09.

Playboy kept calling, kept texting, asking me where I went, asking if I was coming back, that he was showering and wanted me there, asking if I was mad because he drank a little alochol last night, assuming I was pissed because he didn't come back to the apartment until well after he came back.

Finally, I texted him to tell him I had found another place to stay and to enjoy his weekend.

I should've cut his friendship long ago. Once I started reading books on Game and seduction, on different ideas of interaction, I knew what he was, I knew I shouldn't hold to old friendships just for the sake of nostalgia and my odd sense of loyalty.

I asked him last night, how many women he had been with, total. He said 62, which is about 30-35 since we slept together so long ago. I asked how many times he used condoms. None. When I expressed concern, he told me that he "only slept with clean girls".

When I arrived, he asked again if I would not be sleeping with him this weekend, I confirmed that we'd have no sexual interaction, that I wasn't having sex with anyone and hadn't since GV8 in February. That sex that nearly made me cry because I was so desperately in love. So head over heels. Playboy, he told me he was glad I hadn't been having sex, because that would make it easier for him to arouse my frustrations and get me to fuck him.

So I left.

Stepping up, feeling like a bitch, but claiming my time and happiness as my own.

PD texted me around midnight, making sure I had arrived okay. I told him I had, but worried about Playboy. He told me what I was already planning: sleep on it and make a decision when I was well-rested in the morning. He told me he was sure that I would handle whatever situation arose with grace.

He's a good man.

Roman was checking in on me, knowing how distressed I was over the GV8 thing. Referring to my loins as the center of the universe, making me laugh. So few people realize how amazing he is, it boggles me. But he does, texting me sporadically throughout the day, telling me to call to check in, help keep me sane.

Maurice called as well, a mellow voice of reason, offering input and, importantly, an ear and a shoulder.

I don't know what's going on. A large part of my brain wonders if this is a sort of revenge. This is too public, too much, and this blog is so important to me. Part of my brain wonders if he can change, if he should change. Whatever the motive, the reality remains the same.

I can't be that girl anymore. Too many things have happened and, yes, I love him, gods, do I love him. But I've lost trust. I can't idolize him anymore, I can't worship him like I did, constant adoration.

What can he do? What is he willing to do? Where is that line between his personal happiness and my happiness?

I told him once, lying in his bed, just before we fell asleep, I define trust as the belief that, should I be unable to make a decision for myself, that the person I trusted would be the one who would make my decision for me, no matter how contrary it ran to his beliefs and desires. That he would choose what he knew I would want.

Does he just miss me? Does he just worry that I'm meeting other men?

Or does he love me, love me to the point of monogamy, to fathering my children? Making this decision, this offer, for my happiness.

Is he selling me short?

Is this just a prank?

Does he know what he's doing?

So, now that my brain has broken...

2010-05-28T03:10:00.000-07:00

Found the comment on the previous post:

A beautiful post written by a very special, one of a kind, Alli Kitten.

There is much to be said for saving the making of love, for that one special person.

I am very proud of you for the strength and resolve you have shown over the past months, by not falling back into old, self destructive behavior.
You grow by days every passing minute.
(I think I just penned a new quote)

I can also appreciate the honesty in your writing. Spent the better part of a day reading through it all. It comes so much from the heart.

I may just have to marry you one day soon.
With your approval of course...

This actually was GV8. This has been confirmed.

It's 320AM.

For my own need to go back to bed, I'm denying that this has happened.

Nope, not reality.

As a side note, I'm going to be in San Francisco all weekend+holiday for a co-worker's wedding. Won't be posting, but I'll be back.

Assuming my head doesn't explode from trying to mesh that comment with real life.

2010-05-25T19:55:00.001-07:00

For those of you new to the blog, sometimes I go into great amounts of detail about my sex life. This is one of those times.

.
.
.

The date on Saturday, as I said, was good. Slow building of physical contact. Brushing our shoulders together as we walked, the placement of his hand on my lower back for a brief moment to guide me, leaning slightly back into his body as we watched and whispered about the bit of fluff porn being shot in his studio.

After dinner, we went back to his loft in downtown.

Walked up the stairs to the second floor, his bedroom and library running half of the width of the building. Unlit candles lining the steps, obviously used many times before.

I dropped my bag on the couch in the library, dug out my skirt, nylons, and tights. Sat down and began to remove my shoes and socks, then stood and unfolded my little black skirt.

He had sat down in the armchair directly across from the couch.

"Mind averting your eyes for a minute?" I asked.

"I do," he said, watching me.

I raised an eyebrow at him in amusement, then shrugged. Undid my pants and let them fall to my feet. Stepped out of them, then sat back on the couch, placed toes in nylons and unrolled them up my legs, tights followed suit. Brushed my blouse back down over my hips, knowing it was revealing just the lower curve of my ass. Wasn't quite long enough to cover.

Stepped into my skirt and wriggled into it. Zipping it up the side, smoothing it down.

This was the moment. Instinct uncurls from the base of my spine and winds up my back: if I do not step forward now, I'll leave without physically connecting with him. And I do want that connect.

He later said I slinked forward, walking that ten foot distance between the two pieces of furniture, before placing my hand on his chest and settling onto his lap, my skirt riding up my thighs as I placed them on the outside of his while his hands slid from my waist to my ass, gripping.

Ran my hands from his chest to the back of his neck, whispering to him "Sorry, I just couldn't resist". Watching his smile grow just before we kissed.

Establish contact with tongue half a second before lip contact. That's the rule I follow without thought. Anything else seems childish and unnatural.

Lips closing on tongue, suckling, teeth biting lightly down and tugging on that lower lip. Tongue sliding on the outside of one lip, then the other, traveling down to neck with open-mouthed pull and wet tickling of earlobes while grinding hips in a light, erratic bucking rhythm. Rub the length of his torso with your face followed by your chest, back to lips, then slide down to his feet, nuzzle stomach and crotch, scrape the teeth down his jean-encased cock, warm breath through the fabric.

Yes, I know you. I know this poetry.

Relocate to the couch, more room to lean back.

But my teasing nature, my constant smart-mouth, lands me in trouble.

On purpose, of course.

He yanks me up, so fast. Turns me and traps my hands behind me in one move, strides across the open space shoving me in front of him and I'm face down, ass up over the side of his bed. Pulls my stockings and underwear down, tosses them behind him, pulls me up, discards my shirt onto the couch (skirt was discarded long before).

Back to the bed, naked. He's still fully clothed.

His hands leave my ass red, me yipping into the comforter with each blow. He bends down, still holding my hands behind me, licks me from hole to hole, so warm and wet, me moaning and trying to keep my feet from sliding on the slick hardwood floor.

He gets on the bed, pulls me all the way on, flips me onto my back and drags me against him, hitting my breasts until I'm whimpering, burying his fingers in me, curling deep until I free myself from his hold and unsuccessfully pull against his wrist to stop the overwhelming sensation.

He stops. Only to pull my thighs farther apart and start spanking me directly on my cunt. Such a weakness for me... I hate it and love it. Body starts jerking against his hand as I shout, then I'm squirting because the sensation is too much and my body loves it too much. I hear him groan his happiness as each smack causes more liquid to eject, spraying and splashing onto the bed, my thighs, his hand.

When he stops, I'm left panting and happy. He lets me curl up onto my side, and I lay there, face buried in his chest. I hear someone come down the stairs from the third floor, walk through the library area to the next set of stairs: the resident studio photographer. I would receive a text the next day letting me know that he thought I had a lovely ass.

We shift positions, I start dozing with my head on his chest. He's warm and comfortable. I've needed this affection and the physical relief of palms bruising my skin. Trail my fingers over his jean-caged erection, lay a kiss or two on his chest. Some time later, I bid him good night and drive home, with him telling me we'll get breakfast in the morning.

How odd. I don't spend the night, we don't sleep together, and he drives to me to take us out to breakfast on the beach the next day.

It was lovely, sitting in the sun, the beach to my left, ocean breeze running through my hair. Talking. Talking with that ease of familiar comfortability though we've never met.

I will admit some anxiety. It's always like this for me, when I meet someone I'm interested in. What makes it annoying is that I know with him having a vasectomy, there's no future I want there. But he makes me nervous anyhow.

He has access to my other, public blog. A year or so of entries spanning the end of Darkeye's and my relationship, into my winter of seeking sexual validation from men, spring of that continuing... and then the beginning of things with GV8, when it tapered off and life started to go... odd.

It worries me.

It shouldn't. But it does.

I was so very different. I was so young, so searching and desperate. I'm still searching, but that desperation is mostly gone. I'm still a little wavery on the confidence front, but I'm light years better than I was. Worried that he'll judge me on who I used to be. Worried that that information will turn him off.

But it shouldn't matter. It's not who I am now. And he's not someone I can "have".

It's the rejection. It's always the rejection at the heart of things, the insecurity that fuels it. It's times like these that leave me grasping at getting thought patterns under control. Times that I know I need to get a handle on it or I'm going to slide and lose what progress I have made.

Breathe.

2010-05-24T21:21:00.001-07:00

Date with the porn director (henceforth known as PD because I have no imagination) was... incredibly good.

Instant comfortability.

Constant conversation, no awkward moments of silence. Complete easy flow.

There's actually a lot I want to write and things I want to remember, but I'm so goddamned tired (as always) that I don't want to write in this state.

We had fun. We had good chemistry. I met some of his coworkers, his ex-girlfriend (who I later looked up online and am now completely intimidated by), watched a -very- softcore lesbian porn being shot (by someone else renting the space). Wandered through downtown, just talking. Went back to his place, messed around a little bit, but he kept his pants on.

I totally didn't. Such a slut, I know. Stone me, already.

I didn't spend the night, though I wanted to. When I left, we made plans for breakfast, and he showed up at my place bright and early and we walked down to a restaurant on the beach, talked more.

I really like him.

But that doesn't matter. That's a no-go zone.

Makes me circle back around to my fear that since GV8 broke down my walls, I might not be able to have casual sex again without turning into one of those girls that falls in love with her casual partner.

I don't want to go through that again. Once with GV8 was enough.

Personally, I'm going to do my best not to dwell on it. Not until it proves to be a potential issue. As things are right now, we have two dates under our belt and scads of things could happen to prevent any future dates. I've seen it go that way before and, while disappointing, is just the way life can go.

I'll examine, watch, and be aware.

But I'm not going to live in fear. Not this way.

Moment of squeak

2010-05-21T23:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it's currently official, pending interference by natural disasters.

Roman is coming out to stay with me for a few days in three weeks.

The one man in my life right now that I'd actually sleep with.

The one man in my life right now that I can actually talk to.

I'm torn between a *squeak* of happiness and a "what exactly is the universe planning that is going to prevent this from happening?" thought.

Because that happens to me a lot.

In other, less exciting news, tomorrow looks to be packed. Scattered errands and socialization in the morning and early afternoon, date in the late afternoon/early evening with the porn director, clubbing at night. Invited to a birthday dinner as well, but that's likely not going to happen.

Not really... wanting to go out on that date tomorrow.

It's one of those fruitless endeavors. It really is fairly useless. He's not anyone I would have a relationship with, nor can/will I sleep with him. Too risky. So it's just another social point of contact in yet another series of social leapfrogging because I don't let my social circles overlap.

Which is probably because of experiences I had in childhood/early teenage years of losing entire social groups due to drama, and always being the little bitch of the group (because I did not grow a set until after getting kicked out of college).

It's simply not socially safe to have a small number of social groups.

Things happen, people change, drama happens, groups age and then... cocooning. Watching some partner off into safe, happy, sexless relationships. Content. Not adventuring. Locked into their lives. Locked into their friends, their friends' friends, and those who float in, having little to no say over the whole group.

I never fully belong.

But, sometimes, that's a good thing.

So, another friend. Maybe someone I mildly mess around with. Another person to work into my too-busy schedule.

Useless.

I kinda don't even want to get to know him, as he's just going to wind up another guy that I hung out with once or maybe twice, then tapered off talking to because my plate is already too full. And then I feel bad, and pressured.

Heh, I'm kinda setting myself up for a miserable date, aren't I?

No time for a relationship, losing desire for casual sex.

Frightening to think that maybe, after what I experienced with GV8, that I may no longer be able to have casual sex. God knows that the only reason I'm able to consider sleeping with Roman is because I care for him so much. As much as you can when all you have is the voice on the other end of a telephone, knowing that things will go absolutely no where.

So am I there now? Stuck in that place where nothing is going to "work" except for emotions, that I'll start emotionally entangling myself with any man I end up sleeping with regularly?

Or is that just weakness, vulnerability, left over by GV8 stripping me so raw?

That, eventually, I'll get back to normal, to casual sex for the sake of casual sex?

Maybe. I suppose time will tell.

Kinda of odd, being so emotionally vulnerable on a sexual level. That's so new, something I can hardly remember. When I started banging the nights away, I was doing so out of self-destruction, more focused on myself than the person I was sleeping with, using them to hurt my basic value system instilled in me by my parents. So the man didn't really matter, and I was aiming, purposefully, so low quality, that one-night stands were expected. It wasn't until I was 17-18 that I started having regular partners.

Aside from the first person I slept with, I never had that real chance or inclination to bond with my partners. And even that first person, while I thought myself in love with him, the sex did nothing to bring us closer together, though I enjoyed it. It wasn't needed, no bonds were strengthened.

Then GV8 flips things around on me. Shows me what emotional sex can be like.

Never thought I'd learn that.

Never thought I'd be one of those people that say making love is better than fucking.

Another check-mark in the column of "craziness".

2010-05-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

And I'm sitting here going "eh, whatever" staring off into the space that is filled with laptop+lamp+empty glass+vertical blinds.

Hit a point of irritation today.

Which is making me start to realize that I'm withdrawing into myself. I'm hermiting.

I'm in this odd area that makes me not want to partner up, but rather just hang out in my brain. Which is new. Ish. I mean, in the past, even if I was dead-set against getting into a relationship, I'd still be actively hunting for a regular bed partner to help keep my lusts in check.

Right now, I'm in a new zone of not wanting a relationship and not caring if I'm getting laid. Mostly want to be left alone. Feeling frustrated. Feeling annoyed. Don't really want to talk.

Part of it is likely because I'm going out so much.

It really is a nearly every night thing.

And it's my own fault for keeping my social groups spread out so much, never linking up.

I have to plan it: I'm going to be in this part of the city for this thing and that person and that other person live in this chunk and I haven't seen the latter in longer than the former so I will schedule them in between this thing and this other thing and then maybe I'll go home, blog, return emails, shower, ride the bike, cook lunch for tomorrow, and pass the hell out. And while I'm commuting between these places, I've got to call another person and maybe a couple more other people to set plans and connect.

So, Monday, I cancelled plans, and today I just forcibly stopped plans from being made. Catch up on things around the apartment. Laundry. Dinner. Cleaning. Going to bed by midnight.

That last one is important.

I could only imagine what having kids must be like. Good-bye sanity.

And there goes the phone...

2010-05-19T22:31:00.000-07:00

Well, it's not quite eleven yet. That's progress, I suppose.

I feel like I'm drawing more and more inside myself.

Not sure what is causing it, but I feel less like sharing and more like basking in my own mind.

Maybe it's a lack of puzzles to work out, or maybe it's me just mellowing out, getting into the groove.

It's likely my busy, busy life that leads me wasted at the end of each day, trying to keep up. It's a race that never ends, really.

My thighs are twitching lightly, each heart-beat a spasm, warm, fresh from biking.

The bar patrons across the street have their voices funneled up the alley and into my bedroom window.

Roman might be coming out to visit sometime this summer. Just for a few days.

Trying to suppress my excitement, trying to remember that six dozen things can happen between then and now, and my fantasies, even ones as simple as a visit, never actually happen.

Trying to suppress my drive to do. Get it done, move it along.

Just lay back and be mellow. Picture myself floating on my back in a pool, drifting aimlessly, enjoying the heat of the sun and the wind across my skin, the smooth silk blanket of water flowing against me.

What happens is what happens.

In the meantime, we keep on trucking.

Talking less and less to people. Learning more about the superficial conversation, learning more how to keep what I'm thinking inside.

I suppose that means I'll lose part of my charm. Mutual self-disclosure is such an effective bonding tool.

But there are other ways to connect, other ways to be.

Twenty-six and sometimes I feel like an old woman sitting in a rocking chair on a porch, hours in thought, not a word spoken.

I wonder if I'm just losing that urge to share, to validate myself by sharing my thoughts with others. If that's what that is. I'm not sure. That whole... lack of self-definition I have, maybe my constant need to share, to discuss, is to have others... sort of define me? Not really give me terms, but acknowledge my existence, my thoughts, to a point of making me real and part of a "community", even if that community is as common as humanity is.

I've never really felt part of it. Humanity.

Always sort of drifting on the outskirts, using words as connectors. Trying to bridge that alien feeling.

So, perhaps, this lack of needing to share so much, so often, is a sign that I'm getting more comfortable with being me, and being on the outskirts, trying less to bond with others and spending more time just enjoying myself, my mind.

Interesting.

The things that you say that you do...

2010-05-17T21:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit.

I know, I know. Six different kinds of fail. It's not like things haven't been happening, my life has suddenly grown dull. No, things are still chugging along, life is still odd, observations running full tilt, like they do. Still spending most of my time off in my head, watching the world.

It actually hasn't been that long. It only feels like it, I think, because of all the things I've been getting up to.

Kinda hard to cover them all. The experiences stack up and I only have short periods of time to allot to attend to them.

Family- my sister's exboyfriend phoned her with a suicide threat. After his mom called the cops, he admitted he only did it so they would get back together. Reminded me of the boyfriend I had when I was 17-18. He used to threaten suicide all the time, run off into the night saying he was going to throw himself into the nearest large intersection, but actually hide in the bushes. He was... 27, I think. A year older than I am now. Funny how then it seemed normal, and now it seems like crass idiocy.

Date- I have a date this weekend. No, not a serious one. Just a "get to know you" date. A "maybe we'll connect" date. Which I normally would've said no to, but when a man in his early forties with a shaved head who directs porn and owns a large loft/studio/warehouse/dungeon in downtown asks you out after you break up with a man in his early forties with a shaved head who has porn filmed in his large loft/studio/dungeon/adult club in Hollywood, you say yes.

Because I couldn't say no.

Because it's too goddamned silly.

And it cracks me up, in a way, because I am nowhere near as hot as the girls these guys see every day are, yet I'm the girl they ask out.

Win for me?

Work- training my assistant is... interesting. I'm trying out a new way to train and my boss wants me to document it so it can be implemented for future hires... assuming it's successful. The assistant himself is a total, total omega. At least in the way I view them, which may or may not be accurate to public opinion. He makes betas look alpha. It hurts. I want to take him to the kennel and teach him how to use newspaper instead of just making a mess everywhere when he "potties". He's a nice guy just... yeah.

Been talking with Roman a lot.

He's been going through some life upheavals.

It's... odd. I feel so connected to this man. Not necessarily in a romantic sense, but just, we get each other. We get each other in that basic way. So much so that we can actually talk to each other. About anything. Well, anything for me. He's still a bit hesitant. Doesn't matter. That driving urge for understanding I have so deep in me, that haunts me so much, he meets it.

Unusual.

He talks to me and I mellow out. My anxiety, my stresses, they leave my system and I feel like I can breathe again.

Hard to imagine I won't have his constant companionship soon.

But that's the way life goes.

I have a picture of my mother on her wedding day on my desk. She's holding her bouquet, smiling so widely, her dress pooling out around her. I have her smile.

I think she was twenty-three when she married my dad.

That's the way life went.

Twenty-three and so in love, so young, so inexperienced. They've been married over twenty-five years and the things they have gone through together are things that none of them had any inkling of when they met, when they married. My father danced at the wedding reception with his older sister, tall and blonde. Didn't know that a few decades later they'd find her body in the garage, a bullet in her brain.

Things move on. We just keep stringing ourselves through time, linked by experiences.

In a few years, I'll have lost friends to life, and I'll have gained new ones. I'll have dated and slept with men that I have yet to meet. Another broken heart, another experience to scribble about here, half-mad with exhaustion. Sweep me off my feet, then set me back on my heels.

There are people we connect with that we can't imagine not being there, in some capacity, for the rest of our conscious existence. Our parents are there from the moment we're born (usually) onward, our world is defined with them as part of it.

When they die, when they leave, what happens to our world? That role they filled can't be occupied by another.

To someone, somewhere, we truly are unique snowflakes. Common, but unmatched.

He asked me why I am so fascinated with him.

Am I supposed to say that every tone in his voice, I hear? Each word, each inflection, the shift in his moods comforts me. It's warm. It's like hearing every fantasy I've ever had come to life in a rough reality.

But it doesn't matter.

There are things that are real, things that will not be real. It doesn't matter how good you are, how true, how brave, there are things that will not be changed. It's not that they cannot be changed, but there are paths and dreams to follow, and friends wish you well, a smile, a hug, and hope that things work out to your fondest hopes.

Because they're nothing more to do.

And that's the way it goes.

To attempt to change it would be selfish, to demand more would be obscene.

I'll settle for what I have, keep ticking out these words, writing alone in my apartment, listening to the water run through the pipes and the traffic speed through the streets.

In the morning, I'll wake up, stretch, and keep living.

2010-05-13T23:40:00.001-07:00

First, I've gotta say, this guy's writing continues to impress me. I mean, really, this post was gold. Swoon.

My head has been all over the place the last few days.

And being unable to write for part of those days... I've kinda retreated.

I've been noticing that more and more lately, after one of my friends told me that I shouldn't lay everything out on the table for people in the belief that mysterious girls have better game.

Of course, that friend was the one that hid from me the fact that he had a kid.

So that bit of advice must be taken with a grain of salt and a margarita. Or two.

But I have been withdrawing. I haven't been communicating as much. The only man that I talk to regularly on a personal level without holding back is Roman. But that's because he's him and I'm me. It works. It works now. In a few months, shrug, that's the way life goes.

What am I supposed to say, really?

The Bassist came over on Tuesday to fix my laptop. I was perfectly good. Angelically good. Sexual situations were diffused with quick adjustments, physical distance was kept, jokes were not made.

Then C came over.

My behavior changed rapidly, sexuality coming to the forefront.

I believe it was a combination of her expectations of me and me knowing that I couldn't "accidentally" (*cough*rationalize*cough*) do anything with her there.

The former, though, is why I keep my social groups separate like I do. Everyone has a different image of me, of who I am, of what I'm like. I can't play the roles everyone has for me at one time. It doesn't work, which makes two major things happen: personality discontinuity and loss of trust.

Not trust as in "I trust you with this secret" or somesuch nonsense, but trust as in "I trust, innately, that how you've presented yourself is who you are and the behavior patterns you've shown me will continue on in logical paths set forth by what I've observed of you". The kind of trust that we don't really think about.

We trust authors to make sense. We trust that, midway through a book, they won't suddenly change genres from romance to sci-fi. Aliens will not suddenly descend. Writing style will stay the same or if there are any changes, they will make sense in context of the book.

Otherwise we put it down.

It's not like I'm acting. It's more that certain people are comfortable with certain things and I need to stay within those boundaries. I'm more than a 2D character. I can suppress my sexuality and become "the Friend", "the Ear", "the Guru" or "the Shoulder" without thought. Or I can play "the Wild One", "the Aggressor", "the Sub", or "the Sex Queen". With all the various tweaks those come with.

With C, I tend to roll "Sex Queen". With the Bassist, I try to keep myself in "Friend".

So when he's sitting at my desk working on my comp and she's lounging in my bed talking about my oral skills to me... there's a bit of conflict.

Also of note, I realized that a good deal of C's affected social apathy (that stems from anxiety/awkwardness) is alleviated when she's able to put herself, mentally, in a superior position. And she considers herself in a superior position to The Bassist when it comes to my friendship and my apartment. It was interesting to watch her shift like that.

Anyway, that's enough notes. I still feel like I'm burrowed deep inside my head, thinking and planning, but hiding it from myself. Something is going on in my brain and it doesn't want to be known... and since it's midnight, I'm going to put this "thinking" stuff to an end and enjoy this "sleeping" activity.

2010-05-12T22:11:00.000-07:00

One computer is up and running.

It required reformatting my hard drive, but everything that really needed to be salvaged was salvaged.

Final paper has been turned in, the additional papers required will follow suit tomorrow.

Spent about an hour or so earlier taking in a dress I like, but is now too large on me. I forget how easy it is to adjust clothes, sometimes. I've been putting it off for months, but now it's good to go for a club I'm hitting this weekend.

Speaking of, I'm quite... well, not happy, but a shade lower than happy. Finally got guest-listed for this club, the biggest club in the scene right now. One of my exes, Darkeyes, this is his favorite club. He's been going for, oh, maybe two or three years. I can't remember when I introduced him to it. And I'm finally on the guest-list. I disappear for nearly a year from that club, come back, and I'm sailing past him. He'll never know, probably, but it gives me a warm fuzzy.

And since we're on the topic of warm fuzzies and men...

A different club, last weekend. A man was there who I had made friends with, who was very flattering, decent looking, a good dresser. A bit of a beta bitch, but I wasn't expecting more. That was December.

Anyway, back in December, he flaked on me.

It wouldn't have been anything major. I would've just shrugged and written him off.

But it happened that he flaked on me the very first time I was stepping away from my family since the incident with my father. It was my escape into fantasy land where everything that had happened in the past two weeks didn't exist and I was just going to go to a club with this guy and lose myself on the dance floor.

I got all ready to go and, at something like 840PM (when he was supposed to be picking me up at 9), he calls and says he can't make it, something came up.

Normally, by the by, I don't let other people drive me to the clubs. Nor do I drive other people. I don't like having my location in control or influenced by other people. The only reason I was letting him pick me up and drive us to the club was because I was so stressed and exhausted I didn't want to do it.

I was not quite devastated. But with the weeks I had just gone through, and the subsequent guilt trip that my father tried to lay on me for going out... I was pretty damn crushed.

But I forced myself out anyway. I drove, exhausted, to the club. I danced, I talked, I flirted.

And I saw my flakey date for the evening.

Oh, he was there.

It's just that one of his friends needed a ride as well.

So he gave him my seat.

Instead of simply telling me this, he lied to me.

Didn't really talk to him much after that, though he tried.

We roll around to this last Saturday.

I'm introduced to some guy I hadn't spoken with before, but had seen around, knew who he was. We're out on the smoking patio, talking about Buddhist enlightenment or some such. The December Douchebag rolls up to us to join in the conversation.

And being, well, not well-versed in club etiquette, he does what some people do when they've been going to clubs for a little and need to validate themselves as "clubbier-than-thou".

He starts criticizing the DJ. Starts talking about the song choice and how she spins and generally being "oooh, I know what I'm talking about because I'm scene."

Throughout the course of the evening, this happened a couple more times. I'd be talking to the new guy on the patio, the Douchebag would come up, insert himself, fail to insert, so start in on how scene he was by DJ-bashing.

Just think: if he hadn't pissed me off so badly in December, I would have told him that the man he kept talking to negatively about the DJ and the music was the DJ's boyfriend of several years, and was also a DJ himself.

Whoops.

We are now experiencing technical difficulties...

2010-05-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

Both of my computers are dead, it seems.

Work is incredibly busy and I start training my assistant today, which means posting or even replying to comments this week is very unlikely.

The Bassist is coming over tonight to put his tech skills to use, so maybe, just maybe one of them will be functional again.

If not, I'm going to have to go shopping this weekend and posting and such will be erratic until then.

I'm not overly pleased at the moment.

2010-05-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

I am... well, I think I am, hitting that point.

That point where you're squirming in your chair going, "Oh god, I need to get laid."

And it's this battle between my body wanting it and my brain saying, "Nope, that's not the best idea."

In two weeks, I'll be hitting that three month mark. Three months for me is, well, might as well be a year or two. Especially after GV8. That man was ungodly good in bed, and we had ridiculous amounts of sex.

I got used to it. I got used to having a fantastic lover who, even after months of dating, still got me hot and bothered, still got me dragging him into bed to jump his bones whenever possible.

And now I've got this apartment to myself. I've got a metal canopy bed with a good number of tie-down spots. I've got toys, a large bottle of grapeseed oil, candles (not that most guys care about that, but I love the lighting), and... and... fuck. I mean, I can host. I can actually say, "Let's go back to my place" and not worry about roommates, not worry about what's going on, not sneaking them into my bedroom when I lived at home, timing when my parents would be out (though it's been years since I've had to do that).

I've got my own place with my own rules and I'm not using it.

It makes me whimper. Totally does.

I didn't realize I was having this issue so strongly until, last night, at the club, I found myself eyeing my club friend (the one that I keep having to turn down, the one I had to smack down a little bit ago at a party for him thinking he could socially pressure me into kissing him) going, "Hm... I could just crawl on top of him, go to town... he's got that reputation... could probably teach me a thing or three in the BDSM realm... mmm... skin and tongue..." and that shifted to "Whoa, holy fuck, no."

I don't find him desirable. I've never found him desirable.

This, this isn't good. And it's annoying.

Last night was interesting, though. Hit the club. Pulled into my usual parking spot, went inside after pleading with the door guy (wasn't much of a plead, really) to let me in without the person who was guestlisting me, so I could dance to a song that was on. And he did.

Lots of new people out. Some drama, though none of it involved me, which is normal. An acquaintance got shitfaced and started falling over, sobbing, laughing, getting pissy. Drama, drama, drama. Turned into a mid-sized ordeal.

On an amusing note, I happened to catch, while I was dancing, a blond man pointing gesturing at me to the head of security at the club. Figured the security guy would tell me if it was important, later, so I dismissed it.

About thirty minutes down the line, I'm out on the smoking patio, and Mr. Security comes up and says, "Hey, you know that blond guy..." describes him to me, "Have you ever talked to him?" Negatory. "Well, he pulled me aside and said, 'You! Study how she dances! Study how she moves! Watch her!"

"Okay..."

"And last week he was out and started talking about the bar-tender to me, about how..." insert x, y, and z pervy acts. This guy, not the most socially competent of men. I always get those men. I am a magnet for socially incompetent, as we have discussed.

So that was amusing. But, what was the killer for me was, oh, an hour or two down the line, I go to step on the dancefloor, which was fairly packed, and I realize that the empty spot I found is next to this guy.

Who looks at me.

Who leers at me and grins.

Who takes a step forward and puts his arms up towards me.

My mind went, "Eep!"

See, if you knew me at the clubs, you'd likely know that I've got years of experience moving away from groping men, physically aggressive men, and simply poor dancers without looking like I'm avoiding them. Without looking like I'm fleeing away in annoyance (or terror, if they're really bad dancers). Calm, cool, I can go across a whole dancefloor to avoid someone and make it look completely natural.

So this guy, this guy comes at me. No subtly. The dancefloor is packed. This guy, this guy is going to come up to me and either grab me or start talking my ear off with drunken compliments and poor flirting. And quickly.

I bolted. I bee-lined it across the back half of the dance floor and sequestered myself behind a guy I had met earlier in the evening. On the way, I nearly walked into someone, tripped a little. I don't do that. If anyone I knew had seen me, they would've been so confused. And once I explained, they would've laughed their asses off.

There were some random other events that happened, little things. A weird guy I've been seeing around for the last several months interrupted a conversation I was having to tell me that I was a beautiful dancer, a beautiful lady, and he should know, he's been married for twenty-six years.

And I still cannot figure out what the last thing had to do with the first two things.

I have an urge to put a comment here about being "too pretty" and something about my fashion accessories, but only one person would get it. So I won't.

Oh, and the head of security tried to make out with me at the end of the evening.

Except he's married. He's very married. And it was awkward. It was, "Oh god, how do I do this so I don't offend or embarrass him, yet still get him away from my face?"

I managed. But it left me a little... sad. He's been a decent friend for a couple years. We always flirt and cuddle, but he flirts and cuddles with most of the female regulars. He's really good at banter, lots of fun to talk to, and he's a good head of security. I do really like him.

Drove home. Woke up to a text from Roman telling me about his evening spent under the haze of hallucinogens. Or whatever they are. I don't know my drugs. I don't care to know them, really.

Went to my stylist who is finally back in town. Got my roots done. Oh, so done. So freaking done. I can't stand having that blonde there. Now I'm back to my black with my red-tinted tips and very much like a happy clam.

One of her other customers told her I looked like Snow White, while I was at one of the mirrors, finishing up my hair. I can only hope that I am able to maintain this level of paleness this summer.

And I finished my final paper. Whoo! I can have a life again. I was thinking of getting in touch with a guy I went out with earlier this year, hang out some, fool around some, now that I have a little more time, but I'm debating my actual motivation.

Oh, and I took my mom to Hollywood Forever Cemetary on Saturday. You know, usual mother-daughter bonding stuff. Visited the grave sites of my great-great grandparents.

And, of course, I was chased by geese.

It's a talent of mine.

Really.

If there are geese, they will chase me.

I don't understand it. I will possibly never understand it. I believe my uncle, later that day, was suggesting that I go see an exorcist.

Aside from the avian-induced terror, my mother and I had a great time trying to sneak around a building. We were tip-toeing, leaning around the corner like we were in a Scooby Doo episode, looking for the geese. Not that they chase my mom. But if they saw my mom, they'd see me, and then it'd be all over. It was kinda perfect, actually. We were on the outside of a large masoleum with marble steps that went around the entire building, so when we peered around the corner, we were at two different heights, really, just like Scooby Doo.

Of course, we got a few further steps in and one of the geese spotted me and I shouted, "It's comin' right for us!!" and we ran.

I took her by Aroma Cafe on Sunset (my favorite breakfast and lunch spot in Hollywood), Amoeba (she had never been, but was very excited about picking up two Franz Ferdinand CDs that she didn't have), Cafe Was (speak-easyish, decent food, wonderful atmosphere), the Arclight with the Dome (so nice), the Cat and Fiddle (we had onion rings and people-watched), the roof of the parking lot of the ArcLight (amazing view... and I've made out with a few too many men up there), and Musso and Frank's (oldest restaurant in Hollywood).

Afterwards, we drove up to my uncle's house in Hollywood Hills. He and his two boyfriends cooked us dinner. I hadn't met the more recent one... was rather flamingly fabulous, but nice. My mom thinks he's the cat's pajamas. We sat out on their balcony and I watched the four of them get silly on wine, enjoying the evening before the sun set.

It was a good day.

And since I have to be at work tomorrow at 630 or so, I'm going to get to it.

It being "sleep". Like I do.

One, two, three, branch.

2010-05-06T21:46:00.000-07:00

I... had a minor blow-out with a friend today.

This doesn't happen often.

It should bother me more than it does, I think. I'm likely just so... tenuously balanced. I know I'm leaning on Roman too much for sanity. We talk, pretty much, off and on all day. It's not going to go anywhere, I've accepted this. And I do know that, without his companionship, I'd likely be much worse off than I am now.

He's this very distant male-focus point.

So when I got into it with another friend, I found myself texting Roman for sanity.

This whole situation is a bit awkward, with my friend.

I've known this guy for coming up on two years. We've never met, though we live, vaguely, in the same city. Just an internet friend turned phone-friend. He was there for me with things with Darkeyes left me so raw, was there to soothe me and make me smile when anxiety was running at all-time highs. I had a crush on him for a long while, and we would flirt. I'd get my hopes up that he'd ever have time for me and, of course, he never did.

He's amazing at dodging and deflecting questions, derailing entire conversations. I never learned much about him, and for those of you who know me well, one of my more annoying and persistent personality traits is to interrogate everyone within an inch of their life so I can figure out how things work.

Questioning this guy, learning anything about him, was like trying to crack open a slab of marble with a throw pillow.

So I eased off. I try not to press boundaries.

A year later, I find out that he was seriously seeing someone while we were flirting and I was being naively hopeful and weak.

He never told me. He never mentioned it. I, I was flirting with intent with someone who was taken. That, to me, is one of the most awful things I can do. That violates so many of my rules concerning sex and relationships that it makes me feel seriously sick at heart, even though I'm quite well aware that I had no way of really knowing, and it was not my responsibility to be so suspicious to obtain such information.

...I think that, that was the last time I got seriously swoony over someone. I never wanted to be in that position again, with that imbalance of interest. I lost faith. I lost faith in my ability to judge a person's character, I lost faith in the idea that the average male could stay loyal, and I lost faith in my desirability.

Not once did I blame him.

I should have. It was an easy thing to see, to break down. A guy dates/flirts with a few women at once. One becomes serious, but just in case that one doesn't pan out, you've still got a couple on the back burner.

He never made time for me, his phone calls were erratic, and I was trying to recover from the blow that Darkeyes inflicted. All of these are simply excuses. They're accurate excuses, but excuses nonetheless.

So I let it slide.

And when it was brought in front of me, after they had gone their separate ways, I felt guilty, embarrassed, foolish, inexperienced, and used.

But I kept him as a friend. He wasn't anyone I would want to date, after that.

Aside from the flakiness, he was a good friend when we talked. Phone calls continued to be erratic, but I let that go. Saying he'd call in a certain amount of time, only to hear from him two or three days later, if at all. Saying he'd email, but never did. I just kept letting it go.

You know what that shows? Disrespect by him for me, and me accepting it, which confirms his disrespect as accurate. Rewarding poor behavior patterns, reinforcing an imbalanced friendship.

Roll around to today, where I mention that I'm aware that he omits things. This was spawned due to a statement he made where he told me he never lied to me.

This may or may not be true.

But he omits, and I finally called him on it.

Which led to a discussion where, eventually, he told me a piece of information that I, I should have known early on in our friendship just because it's a very life-impacting thing.

He's got a kid.

His defense was that other girls reacted poorly.

I might be very standard in some respects, but I do know that I am leaps and bounds away from sharing tendencies and values with "other girls".

As an amusing side note, I find men with children more attractive than those who have not reproduced. Some girls find men in relationships more attractive because it shows they are desirable, I find men with kids more attractive because it shows they're fertile, and that's very hot to me.

I'm an odd duck, I know, I know. Move along.

At learning this, I was... well, not enraged. Irritated and disappointed. A shade below pissy.

Having a child is a major thing, especially if you've got split custody, which it sounds like he does. They impact your life and behavior in so many ways, not to mention your free time. They show who you are as a person, the way you handle them illustrates your values, controls your schedule.

I found myself feeling, once more, like an idiot.

Like someone just slid another thing under my radar. Like all my powers of observation were reduced to a pile of youthful inexperience.

And that it wasn't the first time he had done it.

Tried to express that, when all two people do is communicate by phone, the value of the exchange lies in the truth of the information being presented. You take away that truth, you warp it and twist it, the conversation loses value, and if the friendship is based solely on conversation, the friendship loses value.

Tried to point out that, earlier in the conversation, he said he didn't lie to me because he didn't want to do that to our friendship, but he was more than willing to rationalize major omissions as perfectly fine and expected.

He says he feels protective of me, but I'm starting to feel like a pet.

And not the awesome kind of pet scenario where you're sleeping in a doggy bed at their feet and crouching under the kitchen table in the morning while they feed you scraps while you give them head.

No.

Just the social imbalance that occurs when one person does not disclose, so bonding becomes imbalanced because the power structure in the relationship is not equal. One person becomes the mentor, one the student.

But, like in so many cases, if information was equally disclosed by both parties, the friendship would have been equalized without having the mentor on some lonely summit dispensing kernels of wisdom to his devoted sect.

It was easy, listening to him, looking up to him, going to him when I was upset. He was the big, strong male with his life together and his head together.

By the end of the conversation, he was telling me "do as I say, not as I do" while I was quoting Braddock's version of "don't take advice from anyone who isn't living the life you want to live".

That was a quick tumble. I didn't even see it coming.

After he told me "Suit yourself" I didn't respond.

What was I supposed to do? Continuing arguing with him? We're not going to agree on this, and I highly doubt he'll fold.

I value honesty so highly. Not some twisted version of honesty where you're trying to manage information flow, control your output, but total honesty. Which is what you all get to see here on a somewhat regular basis. It's not always comfortable, but truth isn't always comfortable, especially when it's revealing so much weakness.

How could I take advice from a man that I could never trust to be honest with me? He says he wants me to learn from his mistakes, but he doesn't seem any happier for where he is now. What little I know of his lifestyle, his intense need for privacy, it's not a goal of mine.

How would I ever know what he is telling me is true, and not just him trying to achieve some sort of random goal, like those moms do with the five year old beauty queen champions? Those parents that push their kids into soccer practice, karate, french lessons, ballet, tap dancing, and honors programs.

Conversation is wasted when words become of questionable value.

Honesty is the currency.

First twenty-three seconds.

Something's got to stop the flow.

2010-05-06T11:14:00.001-07:00

I keep feeling oddly lost.

Well, I've always been lost. It's just that I'm usually able to focus on something long enough for that feeling to fade.

Rick was right. Get me away from a male partner, whether casual or not, and... where am I? I don't know what do with myself or my time, and I panic, thinking that I need to get things done now or I never will.

That sense of aimlessness keeps claiming me, making me irritable, driving home the point that I've never been able to define myself or my goals. Or, rather, I've never been willing to articulate those goals because I "know" somehow that the minute I tell another person, those goals will be made impossible. Something always happens, it seems.

But, really, what can I do? Take some sort of quiz to tell me my life path? Find religion? My religion has been, for so long, a man in my bed, under my mouth and in my body. But that only lasts so long. We fade, people change. I wind up with a false idol.

Figures I'd be having one of those stereotypical quarter-life crises.

No matter what I do, no matter what I accomplish, I'm always going to make it less than it was, discount it, until I feel truly good about myself, overall. Rick says that I'm a good person, that that should be good enough, that that is all I need. I try to remind myself of that, and it's... an interesting mindset.

But it's hard to hold onto because "good" is so very relative.

Lately I've been feeling that everything I've been pushing for is just to make myself more ideal, more desirable, for a partner. It's always that way, I suppose. It's hard to shove aside what we're told we should be to be the best we can to what we want to be to be the best we are.

If that makes sense. There's a bit of duplications of words in that last sentence, but I think it reads right. Maybe.

I keep getting advice, which is what I want, to find out what it is that I should be doing. Who I should be becoming. Trying to figure out how people see me. Knowing that I have friends, so many friends, and trying to determine why they value me. Not to justify or rationalize their friendship, but just to understand how it works, what people perceive. If I communicate myself effectively.

GV8 kept telling me to relax, let go, stop analyzing everything in my path.

It's so hard to get into any one moment if my body isn't being overwhelmed by another's, or if there isn't a story being told to me in some fashion. Books, movies, blogs. Clinging to those distractions.

Wondering what I could do, where I would go (mentally) if left to my own devices, without responsibilities piling in, without my cell phone, without the internet.

If I'd ever figure this out.

2010-05-06T00:36:00.000-07:00

Rough day.

Doesn't help that I'm spending my evenings up and wandering, not getting enough sleep.

Have to push myself into the ground, of course. It's what I do, what I've always done. Push and push until you crash, recover, then do it again.

Didn't have a nightmare about GV8 last night. That was... good. Unexpected. It's so hard to play out the different versions of the same thing, watching echoes of past relationships creep up on me, consolidate into the last ex.

In the dreams, I'm nothing to him.

In the dreams, I'm less than a stranger. I'm "someone he knew, once". Someone he thought he loved. Someone that was worth his love and attention. And then he looks at me in the dream and realizes that I was nothing. An infatuation, a symptom of foolishness. Not worth the most basic of human caring.

Back to those fears again.

Always devaluing myself. Always doubting. Always taking my value from the man who I spend time with, the man who I do my best to please.

It's better now than it was.

Still not 100%.

And it's hard to untangle the strings of actual lust from the strings of internal motivators stemming from other sources.

I have one man right now that I would willingly take to my bed, with near total confidence I would do so out of caring and connection. Being a couple thousand miles apart, though, means my bed is going to be empty for some time.

I'm coming up on my first cut-off. I said no new partners until a week after GV8's and my anniversary. Next Monday. I thought, by then, that there could be a chance that I'd be okay enough to start engaging again.

But I was wrong, and I'm having to move it to the next cut-off. August 1st.

I don't think I've ever gone so long without sex since I was 16 or so.

But, what? Do I really want to just trip up again? Find some "special" guy when I'm not ready for it, have to start again when it falls apart a year or two from now, when I'm 28 and I'm still at the same spot I was before? That I've been at so many times? How foolish that I keep turning to immediate pleasure, knowing the outcome.

So much easier than dealing with what I am now: tension. Anger. Grumpiness. Anxiety. Mood swings. Barely controlling myself from snapping at those around me.

I caught myself on film today. It was unexpected. I went to Lucha Va Voom's Cinco de Mayo show at The Mayan in downtown. A man with a video camera walked down the line, recording people waiting for the doors to open. I was on the phone with a friend, walking away from the line so I could hear. The timing was perfect. I walked about thirty feet in front of the camera, just for a second or two. They played the whole video just before the show.

I haven't seen myself move in years.

Yes, there are mirrors at the club, but I don't really look at them and, honestly, I'm dancing. It's a given that I'm going appear somewhere between decent and very good.

But I got to watch my walk. Something that I've been working on and adjusting, something that gets commented on and draws attention fairly often. Controlled, centered, internal. Rollingly smooth. The hipsway my family teases me about, saying I move like my cat.

It was surprising. I knew I moved differently, but I didn't realize how noticeable it was. Good to know that my body-awareness is paying off.

The show was good, the dancers, the performers, and, of course, the luchadore. For all three matches, each set of wrestlers were "thrown" out of the ring and into the chairs in front of me, people dashing out of the way, spilling drinks, the girls buzzed and shrieking.

I walked to my car afterwards, bidding C and friends good-bye for the evening. They were wandering off to find food, but I wasn't looking to spend money on things I already had at home. The freeway was smooth and empty, I slid into an easy 80, sometimes 90, letting my wheels take me home. My left-handed driving is getting better, though the awkwardness of using the turn signal is cropping up. Less and less I need to bring my right hand into play to make sure I get those extra-tight curves. I think that, within a month at most, I'll be driving just as smooth with my left as I do with my right.

It's a bit of a reality check for me. Making myself face the likelihood that I'll eventually lose all fine motor control in my right hand. Not anytime soon, but probably in the next ten to twenty years, depending on lifestyle choices. If I learn to do more things with my left, that time will extend, which I am aiming for.

But it's 1AM and my neighbors are slowly staggering home. I hear the laughter in the hallway and that's my cue to get myself unconscious.

2010-05-04T09:04:00.001-07:00

Another night, another nightmare about GV8.

It's like my brain is giving me a high-five of suck.

I keep wanting to text or email him, see if he's just as bad off as I am. Connect.

But it's just hope disguising itself.

Gotta keep my head down and get through the day.

Gotta ignore my gut.

2010-05-03T20:38:00.001-07:00

Another night where I am... not writing my final paper.

You know what's going to happen? I'm going to spend all Saturday running around with my mom in Hollywood, then go to a club, which will likely be followed by going to some sort of all-night dining establishment that will round us into 5AM departure, in bed around 6AM, up at 1130AM to dash up the freeway to my stylist to (finally) get my roots done (I've an inch of blonde coming out of my skull. AN INCH.), and then I will plop my sore body down at some coffee shop and hammer out the paper in a five hour sitting, complete with rainbow highlighter markings all over my hands.

I just can't get myself to do it in pieces. And I keep flopping around what I want to write on.

It's... been a year. As of last night/this morning, a year.

A lot has happened in a year. A year with him, parts of it without him.

Ending without him.

Trying to remember what life was like then, before we met.

I had just started couchsurfing. I was still recovering from the terror that Darkeyes had instilled in me, terror of life, terror of control. This blog was a few months in the making. I had just been in that car accident that ensured me that I was my father's daughter, that my hands on a steering wheel are everything I will ever need.

I had no idea what would happen, what the coming twelve months would bring.

That I would learn to love, to love whole-heartedly. That I would actually meet a man I could trust and respect. That those things were the things I was missing. I'd learn how to blindly leap into someone's arms... and how to recover when I impacted the earth.

I made new friends, did things I never thought I would do. I grew, grew so quickly.

Yesterday I went to Disneyland. It was a large social event for a group of us.

The last time I was there, it was December. I was with GV8. We ate at the Blue Bayou, the restaurant inside Pirates of the Caribbean. We took pictures beside the tree in the Grand Californian, laughed and explored.

Roman called when I was physically on the Pirates of the Caribbean. I had just passed the restaurant, felt my stomach clench and the drive towards my redeeming sexual contact, that need to center me.

It's what I do.

I talked with him until we were plunged past cellphone reception, warned that dead men tell no tales.

All day I was with varying friends, catching up with people I had not seen in months, sometimes a year or two. Waiting for that Disney romance that I know doesn't happen. Wishing that someone would steal me away from my reality, just for a moment. For a dinner and conversation, something to hold on to for the coming weeks.

It's just another drug.

Emotional high.

I left the park a little before ten, walking through the crowds of families lining Main Street, waiting for the fireworks to start. Looking at the children, the husbands and wives that saved for the magical day, saved for the weekend or the vacation, to have this experience for their offspring.

The magic of that place.

That one day that the child dreams about until it finally happens. And then they hold fast to it, waiting to go again.

I remember, when I was younger and we were poorer, we'd go once every year or two. Pack lunches. I'd stay up at night, hardly able to sleep, fantasizing about everything we would be doing the next day. I loved the park so much, idolized Mickey. My mom has a picture of Mickey pushing himself up off the sidewalk after a three-year old me tackled him to the ground in excitement.

I'm 26 and I still love it there. Not the rides, not the shows, but the people and the details that go into that park. I used to take a book or a drawing pad and go into the park, prop myself up somewhere and enjoy the atmosphere, the laughter and so much joy.

I forced myself to leave. I forced that stupid, girlish daydream, spawned by multiplied insecurities and my constant need to partner, out of my head.

Turned my back on the fireworks, the young couples embracing.

Walked to the tram, eyeing the outside of the Grand Californian, dragging my mind away from the lobby that I could spend hours inside of reading. Slid into the back car next to a couple, was suddenly joined by a few too many people, ramming my pelvis sideways in order to fit us all.

Drove home, freeway flying under me.

Wished, wished for more than just a moment, that GV8 would be there. That he would have used the keys I had given him months ago, and come here, to spend what would have been our one-year together.

I came home to an empty apartment.

Dropped my bags next to the bookcase by the entry way.

Showered by myself, water scalding my torso pink, wet hair pressed tightly down my back. Roughly dried myself, leaned over the tub and squeezed the excess water out, listening to the drops fall the few feet, thunking into the bottom of the tub.

Crawled into bed, wet hair loose over my pillow. Black on black. Knew my friends would be out at clubs as I laid there, dancing their evenings away.

My life is slowly coming towards a semblance of average order. Nothing spectacular, but nothing dismal.

I've done this so many times. It's a strain. I never last long.

One of my friends asked me today, what it is that I am so good at that I take such comfort in.

I told him, "I'm good at pleasing, at pleasure. It's something I love, but also a way I've learned to cope and give myself value. I was breaking that habit, finally learning to have sex with no internal motivators. Just got to get back to that point."

I've said that so many times, or rather, versions of that. Most of my "adult" life has been versions of me trying to get my insecurities and issues under control so I can stop running my demons loose in bed.

It gets old. It's become a soundwave on repeat.

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of saying it, I'm tired of working on it. I'm annoyed that I'm 26 and, while so much better than I've been, still having issues with not having that sex partner to focus on.

I need that other person. It gives me something.

It's so hard to be without it.

Every day I go exploring in some way. Every day I look for that one connect.

And I'm not even over GV8. No chance.

I hate that this continues. I need to do something new about it, need another tactic, but I'm fumbling blind.

I don't know what more to do than what I've already done.

And guarantee source divine...

2010-05-03T15:09:00.001-07:00

I've been in a state of vaguely awake all day. Haven't been able to push myself into total coherency. No motivation.

What I want...

What I want is a stereo in my bedroom, a man in my bed, and daylight sliding between the vertical blinds. I want perfect rhythm and miles of skin to explore with my tongue, find all the different tastes and textures a man's body has to offer, those hollows at the base of the throat to bury my nose in, let body heat carry male scents upwards, the taut skin running from neck to shoulder, my lips on the curve of that muscle, teeth nipping lightly. An ear pressed to his chest, feeling the heartbeat echo into my skull. The weight when someone shifts on top of you, rolls you onto your back, nuzzle-thrust-nuzzle. Hot breath in your ear.

But I, I am at work.

I am at work and there is no man in my bed.

And every time I have gone to write "bed" in this post, I write "head" instead.

This means something.

There are too many men in my head, and not enough me.

Promise me you will return...

2010-05-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

Got some more work done around the apartment this morning. Shifting boxes, dumping trash, organizing. I'd like to it get done by the time school is over with so I can focus on my book. If I ever do start the damn thing.

Headed over to meet the texting moron that I've ranted about once or twice on here. He kept asking me to take him shopping for clubwear because, apparently, I've been recommended. And he knows my ex, who I also had to take on similar shopping trips at his request. I suppose, for that circle, I'm the go-to girl for club-related things.

We met up at 1130. The store I had chosen (more for its location- by the beach, as I was feeling in a beachy mood) had incredibly limited stock. Last time I had been there, I was able to pull several things for my ex that he cycled through with ease. This time, absolutely nothing.

So we wandered down near the pier and grabbed lunch at a little Mexican place with a patio (necessary). Talked. I let him know that I was on a chastity phase, and that I wasn't dating. Of course, since I didn't directly tell him that that statement included him, he's going to likely dream himself into being the magical exception to that rule. Guys do that.

I was... rather disjointed. As soon as I parked my car, I felt those twin steel ropes of tension thread up along my spine and bury themselves in the base of my skull. Quick twitch of my head to the left and the right, cracking the spine, trying to get my neck to relax, no dice.

I went into a shitty auto-pilot. An auto-pilot so barely monitored, I must've come off like as looney.

And it was because my brain, the thoughts and feelings running through my mind, were louder than what was going on directly in front of me. Truly. They drowned out his words when I was staring at him, trying to hear him. It was the most bizarre thing. I felt like I was thinking so loudly and intensely that he should be able to hear me. I kept trying to start sentences based off of things I was thinking, no lead in, nothing. Just like shifting a conversation from internal to external, stream-of-consciousness stuff that I do here but, very obviously, don't do so much in life.

By the time we got to the restaurant, I was starting to get overwhelmed. I was starting to lose my ability to keep track of our conversation, to make sense of the words he was stringing together. It was like trying to have two phone conversations at once.

I sat there, mentally winding up, unable to figure out what the hell was going on with me.

And then my phone rang. Roman.

I apologized and answered, to tell him that I would call him back. Exchange a few lines of teasing.

When I hung up and put the phone down, my tension had left me so fast that I started laughing. The relief, the total relief of having the last two hours of my life full of wordless voices, suddenly silent. The texting moron just kinda looked at me, bemused. And I laughed the sweet, sweet laughter of release.

Conversation was easier after that. The barrage of thoughts started again, but not so intense, not so wild. I was able to maintain and apologize that I was being so off.

And things shifted to sex. That happens a lot. And, apparently, he had been asking about me to some mutual friends. They told him that if he ever wanted a girl that could keep up with him on a sexual level, it would be me.

So that came up and, like most always, the validation started. I wish I had recorded that conversation so I could point out all the ways he attempted to validate himself and all the ways he was tested the waters of my sexual interests. I wanted to say to him, "Hon, every time you try to validate yourself to me, especially sexually, is another point off. Your attempts are having the exact opposite effect you wish them to have."

Afterwards, I drove through the city to get to the freeway that would take me to my parents' house, listening to the CD my club friend had made me. Another set of songs he could see me dancing to.

He approached me, last time we were both at the same club. Did a slight toe-scuff, rubbed the back of his neck, looked at me and told me that one of our mutual friends asked him (again) why the two of us aren't dating. And he said he told her, in what sounded like a cute and defeatist voice that we just weren't. Some things didn't happen. I shrugged at him and apologized for my lack of interest. In a loving, but platonic, way.

He keeps looking for that keyhole. That one way to get into my life.

Ended up in a Starbucks, supposedly working on my final paper, but instead reading Martin's Game of Thrones, which has completely sucked me in.

I had no focus for my paper. The words could not hold the rising wave of thoughts. Couldn't drown them out so I could get done what I needed to do. The book could.

Couple hours later, I was at my parents' place, laying across the family room couch, book in front of me. Brain was in an uproar, thoughts too scattered to make sense, too much flooding me that the book could no longer hold my attention.

I excused myself for a walk.

Stepped out on my childhood streets. I used to walk the neighborhood dogs here, year round. Blisters forming on my bare feet during the summer when the asphalt would get so hot the dogs and I would tear across it to the grass-lined sidewalk.

It was too small. I could walk the whole neighborhood in less than forty minutes.

Picked a direction, picked a destination, went.

Arrived at the destination, my brain still unsettled, picked another direction, went.

Four miles later, I was on my old college campus, tears in my eyes.

Not for college. No, that campus simply taught me that "higher" education and shared focus does not actually breed common ground. I fit in there just as well as I fit in at a church.

Near the end of the walk, I realized the reason that I was strung so tight.

While the date isn't the same, it was this Saturday, last year, that I met GV8. The event that I am going to tomorrow is the same event that I went to running on twenty minutes of sleep because of our bedroom activities. This time, last year, I was at a club where, in three hours time, I would strike up a conversation that would lead to some major life events with a man that would impact me more than most any other person ever has. And I miss him so very much. Even as I write this, tears are forming and I have to keep them from rolling down my cheeks. I have to distract myself from how much this hurts.

So that's bad enough.

But it gets even better. Because of the event I am going to tomorrow, because of the people I am planning on going with, I get to spend the day with my most disliked ex-boyfriend. I've had some shitty experiences with relationships ending, but this guy puts all the others to shame.

Which means, not only do I not get to spend our one-year anniversary with GV8, but I do get to spend it with Darkeyes. When I would much rather be lighting him on fire and kicking him down a flight or five of stairs.

Really, it's been almost two years since we've broken up, and I still want to do damage to this guy. That is so rare for me.

I'm not sure how I'm going to play tomorrow. I had been planning on doing the usual social butterfly dance until he realized that I now own him in nearly every way possible, but now my anger and frustration is running so close to the surface that I'm not sure if I just want to chase him off at the beginning of the day and be done with it. That could cause rifts and drama, but I really don't want to spend my day playing with him when I could be hanging with friends.

...and I just figured out what I'm going to do.

Thank you, Blogger. You solve all my problems.

2010-05-01T00:14:00.000-07:00

I've been trying not to post while under the influence of exhaustion, but my life lends itself to being exhausted.

Spent the evening with some new (sorta) friends.

It was an odd experience.

It let me see how much I've changed.

I met the coordinator of the group when I was about 17 or 18, when my hobbies were of a significantly nerdier bent. He was my unplanned dance partner for the occasional folk dancing class. We danced really well together, perfectly in sync, no matter what style of dance we were doing. Our favorite was a Russian number that I cannot hope to spell that would increase in tempo until you were near running through the steps. Another, more western European, possibly British, country dance involved switching out partners, snaking your way into the form. Essentially, dance cock-blocking others.

I stopped going to the classes when I was around 19, when I met one of my LTRs.

So there's your backstory.

When I was down in San Diego earlier this month, I ran into my old dance partner at a party. We talked a little bit and, surprise, his girlfriend lives less than two miles away from me up in LA. He invited me out to their occasional board gaming get togethers.

No, I'm not talking Shoots and Ladders or Checkers. This is more along the veins of strategy games. RISK. Advanced Civ (my personal favorite, though that takes somewhere between six to twelve hours to run through so most people won't play). Various brightly colored, cheap'n'easy games like Puerto Rico, Carcassone, Dos Rios, La Citta. You can get through those anywhere between thirty minutes to two hours.

I... don't play boardgames anymore. I used to. I enjoy them, I like the strategy building, the planning ahead, trying to read your players, watching people interact.

Part of the reason is time.
Another part of the reason is finding people to play with.
And a major problem with the above, which makes it so difficult, is finding sane people to play with. And by "sane", I mean intelligent guys that will put up a challenge but aren't so socially awkward I feel like I'm being masturbated about under the table OR won't just drive me absolutely batshit with whatever gamer quirks they have.

And there are a lot of quirks. I had NO idea.

Ah, blissful ignorance, I miss thee.

So this guy says he's got a couple of people that he plays with and I like his girlfriend (though she's a little... oh, we'll say, totally nuts), and so I agree to come over to her place one night and play games with them. Boardgames, you goddamn pervs.

She actually ended up living in an apartment that was next to one I had been attempting to look at when I was apartment-hunting, but the property manager was so incredibly incompetent at returning calls on time and arranging to let me into the building I wrote it off.

Her apartment is... well, built around the same time period as mine. Would be cute, if the windows weren't so tiny. I can't deal with tiny windows, I love how mine just line the walls of my apartment. College student apartment, messy, books and papers everywhere, no decoration. I couldn't imagine living there.

Met the friends that were joining us for the evening. More college students, save for my old dance partner. Mildly awkward nerds, but sweet.

The dynamic was... odd. Very odd.

Two couples. We've got my old dancing partner who is probably 28 or so and his girlfriend, who is 20. She's a college student studying marine biology, doesn't work, just does the school. He, as I found later in the evening, has let his body kinda go to pot. Pointy little man-boobs, wide, sagging belly. It's not really at the "paunch" point, but it's taken his trim waist and, well, you know. No bueno. She's short. Short like 4'10" short. Curvy, but her ratio is slightly off. I think it's her shoulders, I'm not sure. Frizzy dirty blonde hair. Glasses. She'd have a good body, but she's carrying a good ten or fifteen extra pounds on her, and at her height, that isn't a small sum.

Other couple, also college students. The male was blond, wide, round face. Odd haircut, falling into his eyes every so often. Small mouth with not quite perfect teeth, enough to be noticeable, but not enough to have you recoiling in horror at the sight of Lawnmower Man 3. Maybe 6'. His girlfriend... I think she was somewhere in the realm of Vietnamese/Filipino/Korean. Excessively wide face, decent body. Friendly, but socially awkward in some situations.

I could not get over the interactions within each of the couples.

Playing the games with them, with both their boyfriends telling them what to do. Telling them how to play, when they were making a wrong decision, when they missed something. Especially the Asian girl/Blond boy combo. She is never going to learn how to be good at any game as long as her boyfriend is telling her what to do instead of teaching her how to view the game, how to handle situations.

And my dancing partner was no better with his girlfriend.

While I was learning new games, trying to wrap my brain around them in ways that make sense to me, there was constant input. A little too much input, and in ways that did not make sense to my brain.

Finally I grabbed the rule book for one of them, started reading it while we were playing. I wasn't sure what was going on, and the way that it was being explained was not working for me.

About half-way into the game, I was able to get enough of a grasp of the thing to bring it around.

But before that, the two guys kept leaning over, telling me what to play, even as I was making my own moves.

Looked up at the dancing partner, said, "I've got this. If you keep telling me what to do, I'm never going to learn how to play."

I had to say it once more after that before he let me fly free.

Give me just a few more times with that game, and I'll be able to beat both of them regularly.

Watching the sexual interactions between the couples. Touching, kissing, the casual "I love you"s. Total naivety. When asked about a particular situation, I mentioned that, when I was 18 or so, a guy tried to get me to sleep with him (or at least go down on him) because he couldn't have sex with his girlfriend because she had cysts in her vaginal canal due to some disorder. First off, I told him no. Even then, I didn't poach. Secondly, as I told my gaming friends, that's what anal is for.

They wigged a little.

The "ew!" and the "oh my god!" and the "gross!" and the squirming... even the guys. I was completely blown away by their reactions. Well, not the girls so much. I kinda expect that in college girls. But the guys? Really??

When we went to leave, the blond and Asian asked me where I had parked, offered to walk me the half-block to my car. The blond told me he heard that there had been three drive-bys in the area recently, and that one of his friends refused to come to this area at all. I thought he was joking. It's not the best neighborhood, but it's nowhere near drive-by material. His girlfriend piped up that he was a master at Aikido, so he could protect the two of us from anyone that might attack us.

This is when I stare.

Well, not physically. That'd be rude.

But, mentally, I'm just staring. Staring at her, staring at him.

I can't imagine being that young. I can't imagine being that inexperienced. They're probably four years younger than I am, and our lives are so far off from one another. I used to be like them, in a way. Used to be that awkward, that tentative about sexuality, about social interaction. It feels like so long ago.

Watching them as we played, those movements and touches that speak of hesitation and territories not yet explored, or not explored thoroughly enough so one might call them their own.

Watching their lives play out. Possibilities of their lives. The weight-gain, the poor aging, the shitty diet, the vaguely cocky behavior put on by a need to show that he's more than he is. Her psychosis, whatever its source, that is going to be passed onto her children. Wondering if she'll ever mellow out. Wondering if they'll cocoon together like so many couples do much too early on.

Drove home.

Got to my beautiful little apartment. My bachelorette pad. Changed into my pajamas and climbed into bed. Living on my own. Living without that male companionship that I love so much. Going out so often, so many friends, so much to do all the time that I wipe myself out.

Wonder if that sort of life, their sort of life, was ever in the cards.

Or if this was the way it was meant to be.

2010-04-29T22:22:00.000-07:00

Feeling kinda... socially stagnant.

Which is odd. I get out all the time. Too often, really.

Wonder if I'm just looking for excuses/distractions from dealing with my own responsibilities, and afraid that I'm just going to sink back into social non-existence.

Unpacked some more boxes last night and today. Long overdue. They've been sitting in my kitchen since I moved here in January, but it's a lot of decorations and memories. Memories... can't do much with at the moment. Decorations... that involves making this space my own. More my own.

But I did it. Progress was made. It felt really nice.

Always so afraid that anything I really enjoy is going to be yanked out from under me.

Feels like it happens so often, whenever I get excited about something.

I shut down my dating site profile.

Kept finding myself there, browsing the members, waiting for that lightening strike of "ooh, that's mine" to hit.

It's embarrassing. That's the last thing I need right now.

And the stupid, stupid messages. Who teaches these guys how to write? Or interact with the opposite sex? I feel like I could teach a course on how not to email women on dating sites.

And then the stalkers. Those guys that keep coming back and making sure you know they were there. And the passive-aggressive messages that follow.

So I decided it wasn't good. I'm itching. I'm itching with physical need and, more importantly, psychological need to have that male distraction, have that focus, have that rush of chemicals to my brain that leave me restless and excited.

I've gotten so much better than I used to be. Time was, when a relationship ended, I'd bounce from bed to bed. Happy, yes, but not necessarily healthy. Or, rather, in most cases, not doing anything positive for me, just engaging in my typical cyclical behaviors. It wasn't unhealthy, it just wasn't helping.

Things with GV8 have been rocky. The time I left him, back in early November of last year, I found my way into two different beds (and one of those beds contained two men, which was freaking awesome). Then he left me in December and the thing with my dad happened and, after that was all over, I found myself in bed with two men- but not having sex. Back together, then apart again, in bed with one man (no sex), made out on a couch with another.

Now we're apart again. Well, we're done, really.

It's been a week as of today, and I'm feeling that itch rise.

Gotta keep it tamped down. Gotta distract myself with life and with friends. Gotta focus on me and my goals. Long-term goals, not short-term, brief emotional-connect goals that do nothing for me but distract me from living the way I wish to live.

Each time has had a small backslide, each time has been less of a slide than the one before it.

I want to get better. What I do now... it's passable. It keeps me decently happy. I like being the sort of sex-queen I've come to be. But I don't want to stay in this place. To grow means there needs to be change. To change means there needs to be something you give up.

And I need to give this up.

But somehow I manage...

2010-04-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

C and one of her partners came over last night.

They hung out in my kitchen making taquitos while I showered. We're no strangers to each other's bodies, given the amount of time I spent couchsurfing with her, wandering around my apartment naked while the water grew hot was nothing out of the ordinary.

She's been seeing this new guy, not the one that was with us last night. I don't like him much. He's very controlling, but in the way that makes you think he's doing you a favor, or that he "really respects your decisions". His hands are cold and damp, his haircut too feminine, his posture lacking.

The four of us are going to a Cinco de Mayo event next week. C, her two guys, and myself. He didn't want to go with us. He wanted to have her to himself, didn't want to share. Doesn't want to get to know the other people she spends so much of her life with.

My right arm has been aching lately, as it often does when I overuse it. Too much time playing keyboard jockey, too many nights falling asleep with my hands clenched into light fists, jaw locked shut, grinding my teeth.

I find myself daydreaming about a male arm sliding around my waist, pulling me into him for more contact while we sleep.

I find myself at a club in conversation with a one-night stand from two years ago, discussing how his girlfriend finds me desirable, and how that interest is, oddly enough, returned. Imagining a threesome- he's tall, well-dressed red-head, she's a leggy blonde, and I've my dark hair and swishy curves.

It'd look good. The three of us would look gorgeous together.

I spend my days talking with Roman, text, IMs, phone calls. Constant companionship of the platonic variety. I'm comfortable with him, comfortable talking with him, arguing with him, teasing him.

Found myself shooting emails back and forth with a man who I've been interested in for several years. When it trickled down from several paragraph exchanges to one or two sentences, I shrugged and moved along.

His loss.

I actually thought that. Without a trace of snark, but a sincere observation. I don't have interest in playing "chase the overworked businessman". He can hunt me down if he so desires.

Got a comment on an earlier entry. One sentence. Saying something like, "Damaged... so very damaged."

Had that mild rage rise up.

Probably not that rage one would expect.

But the rage that comes from being confronted with another set of beliefs that rolls egocentric in nature.

To express to someone that they are damaged is to say that you are healthy enough to comment on their state of being. Not only that, but that how they feel, how they experience life, their value system, is entirely incorrect. That you know, you know exactly how to be healthy and happy.

That one truth to living. You've got it.

Unfortunately, since it's a single sentence comment, that Ultimate Truth of happiness and health isn't being shared. There's nothing supportive or constructive.

No, it's just a drive-by comment. Unneeded. Expressing to the poster their superiority, the recipient, their inferiority. Nothing further to be communicated.

The buck stops here. Whatever that means, exactly.

It means that the opinions being expressed in the post were indiciative of damage. Meaning those opinions were unhealthy. Meaning that unhealthiness is wrong. Meaning those opinions were wrong.

But the commenter, the commenter is oh-so right. Because they know. They know that their opinions are right. Which means their opinions are healthy. Which means they are healthy.

When speaking with Roman on a similar, but totally unrelated topic, I can only that this to mean that the commenter, or anyone expressing such egocentricity, knows what the universe wants. Knows the Ultimate Right, the Ultimate Goal, the Ultimate Path to happiness.

At the time, I described it as the girl in question being on the other side of a double-ended dildo shared with the universe.

I swear that it made sense ...I think.

I have no tolerance for such mindsets, as hypocritcal as that may sound. I will argue with people whose worldviews I agree with if I feel like they believe they know the Right Way to Be, in whatever forum that may occur. Religion, social, sexual, political... I won't discuss their beliefs with them, but I will rip them a new one (as Roman discovered yesterday) if they're platforming for the Ultimate Right.

It's one of my biggest peeves, one of the things that will be guaranteed to either set me off of make me leave a room. I have walked out of family dinners with the sentence: "Let me know when this discussion is over."

Back to the initial starting point for this topic.

Am I damaged?

In my opinion, yes, I am damaged.

And that's the only opinion that matters on this subject.

2010-04-25T21:48:00.000-07:00

Roman has prescribed to me that I need to step away from the MRA, evo-psych, and general PUA blogs for a bit, get my head out of that world. I was thinking that myself, so I'm going to try to mellow that side of things out.

When Friday rolled around, I was a small ball of rage promoted by fears and insecurities regarding ending things with GV8. I was snappy and unfocused, completely bitchy and anti-social. Work doesn't help at the moment, as my boss is out of town for the next few weeks, which puts me in charge of a department that I've never been taught fully how to manage.

So I drove over to a large Mexican restaurant down the street from the office after work, book in hand.

I go there about, eh, once every month or two.

But when I arrive, the hostesses (only one of which I ever recognize) seem to know who I am, comment that I haven't been around. I suppose that doing what I do (going to restaurants and eating while reading a book) makes me fairly easy to remember.

"Oh, there's that loser girl. Why isn't she at the bar with friends? Why is she off in a corner, reading a book?"

Nah, I know it isn't that bad.

For more brain relaxation, I went to see "The Back-up Plan" after dinner.

While I was not the only solitary female attending this movie, I do believe I might have been the only one there reading "The Mating Mind" through the previews.

That movie kinda hurt. But the water-birth scene had me laughing so hard I was falling into the seat next to me.

I also was breaking down the male lead's game techniques in my head. I really need a vacation from thinking.

Saturday, I went to the LA Times Festival of Books.

I did not think that there would be so many people there. I mean, really, people don't read. They just don't. Especially here.

But there were people.

I ended up feeling rather awful, for two reasons.

1. I... always feel outside of things. Outside of groups. I never fit in anywhere, in my opinion. So I'm wandering around this book festival surrounded by, theoretically, people that love reading as much as I do. So we should be... similar. Right? Constantly buried in books? Passion for words?

Well, that proved untrue. Well, untrue as far as I could tell.

Looking through books, through all these different booths and publishers with their own agendas to spread, looking for that one that will make me fall in love with the written word again. Failing.

I just want that one writer to knock my socks off. I want roughness and honesty, I want internal range and a hint of self-destruction.

Then I started checking in with the writers groups/guilds/camps/flocks/whatever, trying to see if I could find a writing group that would suit me.

When I tried to explain what I was seeking to do to the VP of GLAWS, checking to see if they had such a group (they sort by type), not so much. He just looked at me, slightly glazed, but still selling. Nice guy, but...

It's probably just me.

It's probably me expecting to be the outsider, expecting that constant judgement and that instinctive recognition. You know, the one where you feel people know you aren't like them just by looking at you, even if you look like everyone else, somehow, some way, they know.

Walk into any group with that mindset, and they'll likely "know", if just by your body language.

So, there was that.

Then, #2, walking around, looking at all these people that are self-publishing, starting their own publishing company, pursuing their dreams, getting themselves out there... and I've done nothing. I do these short bits for the blog and then... that's it. Nothing long, nothing in progress. I don't put in the effort, the time, that is needed for something more quality. I don't submit pieces like I should, I don't try to improve my writing.

I'm so afraid of failure, and so afraid of completing this project, that I do nothing.

So I was walking around feeling like a miserable outsider who has done nothing to try to achieve her goals, put in no work toward the "next great American novel". Going nowhere in life.

It was... no good.

So, around 230PM I used my lifeline and called The Bassist. We decided to go MOCA in downtown, as I had never been.

He got stuck in traffic, so I had a good forty-five minutes to wander around and take pictures of that area of downtown. It was pretty nice, though cold.

When he finally arrived and we got into the exhibit, I realized that I've never understood "contemporary" art. So much of it seems like a waste, like a bunch of overpriced pretentious bullshit.

But The Bassist, being all artsy and stuff, was able to explain it to me in a way that made sense, so I actually started appreciating it and understanding it. Which makes me a little sad because now... yeah, sure, I could see someone buying that painting that is two solid colored rectangles standing next to each other for, oh, $50K.

Or whatever these crazy people do.

The museum had a couple amazing photography displays. Completely emotional, near biographical work. I loved those.

And then The Bassist told me what had happened with this girl he had met.

He's such an unusual guy, and way too smart, that he has a hard time finding women that he connects with. He's also leans towards dating older women, prefers them in their 30s or 40s. He's a young musician. There's this definite gap for him between who he wants to date and who will date him because of that reverse age separation and the social stereotypes that come with being in a band and going on the occasional tour.

So he met this girl last week who was a near perfect fit in all these ways that he never would have expected to find in another person. He was raving to me about her for days because they were so ridiculously well-suited.

Turns out she has a boyfriend that she's been living with that past seven years and he's given her permission to have an open-relationship.

The Bassist, he doesn't swing that way.

He was so disappointed and so angry. Not at her, but at life, about meeting someone so near perfect to find... that.

We drove over to Hotel Figueroa for dinner while he ranted. Sat in the restaurant in the lobby and people-watched and ranted more. Wandered around the Staples Center, then went back to Hotel Figueroa (where we accidentally crashed a private party at the pool/bar, where French women were handing out plastic monkey masks) then drove mad-cap through downtown listening to some amazing Swedish band.

I hit the club without him after that, dancing the evening away even though my legs felt wrecked from walking all day. It's amusing that such minor physical exertion over the course of ten hours can wipe someone (me) out on a purely muscular level.

Afterwards, a group of us hit a nearby IHOP.

I'd rather have gone to Fred 62's, even though it was significantly farther away. But majority (and proximity) won out and about ten or so of us headed over to an IHOP with a too small parking lot.

I think I'm going to make a habit of taking a change of clothes along with me when I go clubbing. This is the second time where I have, fortunately, had a change of clothes in my trunk, so while all the other girls are sitting around in their too-tight club gear, all sweaty and uncomfortable, I'm peeling my stockings off in the bathroom, wriggling out of my mini-skirt, and putting on a comfy pair of cargo pants and flip-flops.

Sure, one might say I should have stayed clubified because I was sitting next to that DJ I have a small fancy for, but I simply could not bring myself to care. It is so very, very nice to be in clean, dry clothes after a night of dancing, while people are bringing you food.

And since I switched to flip-flops in the ultimate effect of laziness, and then propped my feet up on the chair across from me, I got a foot rub.

Yes, that's right. I got to spend all night dancing, sweating my ass off, to go out to an IHOP at 330AM, have food brought to me, be fed perfect bites of pancake by the man across the table from me, and get my feet rubbed.

It was so nice. I was near purring, leaning on the DJ apologizing for my occasional noise, but it felt too good. Being on my feet all day, then dancing... they were sore as hell.

Drove off around 5AM or so, headed home. Quick shower and crawled into bed.

Roman jarred me from my sleep with a phone call at 11AM. I knew I should've texted him when I went to bed, telling him not to call before noon. I think he has a thing for my "oh jesus christ what time is it, where am I, oh god why am I awake??" morning voice. It's all low and raspy, and I'm not coherent enough to be a smartass.

Basically, the morning after a club, I am a defenseless bed-kitten.

I tried to go back to bed after that, but it was too late. Forty minutes of tossing and trying to convince my body that it needed more sleep did not work. Ended up putting on Flashdance while I cooked breakfast, then cleaned and posted some furniture I needed to get rid of on craigslist (did a little photo shoot of it, too). Which still hasn't sold. This is lame.

Finally motivated myself to leave the house, ran by Trader Joe's on the way to my parents' and picked up ingredients for dinner.

There was this cashier, a woman in her fifties or so, dyed red hair, cropped close to her skull. Thinning. A little chunky, but nothing that would be unexpected on a woman her age. Large-framed glasses, heart-shaped face. No wedding ring.

She reminded me of my aunt, the one who killed herself last year.

Just that sort of open, slightly disconnected expression. Not stupid, but a little uncomfortable and unsure. Awkward without knowing why.

I watched her for a bit, as she rang up the man in line in front of me. Wondered if she was a lesbian, a widow, a divorcee, a spinster, or just a woman without a wedding ring. Wondered what she was doing, at her age, running a register at Trader Joe's. Wondered if she had experienced love, how many times, if her heart had been broken, if he was a cheating bastard, or if she had a partner at home that she was totally devoted to. If working at TJ's on the weekend was a way of making ends meet, or just something to do: a time-kill for lonely weekends. A way of getting out of the house.

Arrived at my parents', popped my laundry in the dryer, sat out on the patio with my parents while my father read the newspaper and my mother kicked my ass so hard at Scrabble. It was painful. Something like 196 to 300. I rarely lose that bad.

When I started cooking dinner, my dad got a little snappy. Not at me, but at my mom. Snappy, and unprovoked. Snappy, trying to pick a fight. Snappy, releasing aggression at something other than the actual source. Fuck-with-your-mind snappy.

That combined with his increased activity during the course of the day, even though he's got a chest cold and the last time he had that he ended up in the hospital with pneumonia, I had a mild freak out.

Totally contained, all internal.

But... yeah. The thought of him going into an extreme manic episode again, when there's no drug to blame, how badly that would fuck everything up, topple me off this unsteady perch of sanity, I started shaking. Started quizzing my mom on his behavior, his moods, when the last time he had been to his therapist was.

I'm not going to let this happen again.

My mother is all optimistic, doesn't want to think about it, doesn't think it'll happen again.

I'm on high alert.

I don't want to go through that again. I don't want to watch my mom go through that again.

Dinner was a success with the folks, but I was disappointed. It hadn't come out nearly as good as it had before. Afterwards, Dad and I curled up on the couch and watched Nightmare on Elm Street which, somehow, he had managed to not see until now. He was unimpressed, but I still love that series.

I drove home and went to bed, making it a weekend without any sort of contact with GV8.

It's hard. I feel a bit directionless without him, a compass with no north.

I've never really had a solid direction. Five year plans are as foreign to me as one year plans, it's only of late that I've really be considering the future. I have an envy for people who know what they want to do with their lives, where they want to end up, what their priorities are. A career path, even. It terrifies me to think that I might always be working jobs that I'm good at but don't really have a passion for, don't have an interest in, always rather be writing than sitting at a cubicle.

Three years from now and still in the same industry?

I'd be twenty-nine. How sad is that?

Four years and I'll be thirty. I can't even imagine.

I've been developing this theory lately, about how, when I was a child, avoiding chores (most typically, it was mowing the lawn and I would hide up in my room, hoping that my mother would not wake me and I could "sleep" until it was too late to mow the lawn, which my eleven year-old brain would not realize that it would have to be after dark for that to happen), avoiding pain (shots, lighting matches)... these were things that were dreaded, were focused on.

Each month was slow, waiting for things that were planned weeks or months in advance to happen, waiting for the weekend, waiting for Christmas or Halloween. Life crawled, and each event seemed to have a larger impact then than a similar event would now.

I'm starting to wonder if it is a ratio thing.

When we're five, one day is a significantly larger percentage of our life than one day at the age of thirty. Sure, it's less than 1%, but if we're comparing...

5 yrs x 365 days = 1825 days means 1 day is equivalent to 0.055% of our life. Which doesn't sound like much.

But then we go:

30 yrs x 365 days = 10950 days means 1 day is equivalent to 0.0091% of our life.

Which is, in my opinion, is a relatively large difference. At least it is in social stat. Wish I remembered more of it.

So each day, and the events of each day (or lack thereof) has a greater impact when you've experienced less time because it is more of your life.

Time, in your view, would technically take longer.

Which could help explain why time seems to move so much faster as you age, and the little things have smaller impact, you don't go out of your way to avoid mild, expected pains.

And, yes, I know that there's many contributing factors. Experience. Deadening nerves. Maturity. More activities, more demands on time.

It's just an interesting thought for me.

My parents, being hippies, used to take my sister and I on long roadtrips across the western half of the US. It was normal for a day of driving to range around 8 hours. Sitting in the car for eight hours when you're five or six is a nightmare of boredom. You're sitting there going, "Jesus Christ, this is eight hours of my life and I haven't experienced a large volume of hours yet, I'm only six!"

And you're asking your mom how much longer and, in my family's case, I would be answered in Sesame Street episodes, which were an hour.

"Mooooom, how much longer?"

"Two Sesame Streets, V, and then we'll get lunch."

If it was less than a Sesame Street, she'd hold her fingers apart and explain that if this distance was a Sesame Street episode, then this shorter distance was how much longer we had to drive.

It was those indeterminate ones that drove me nuts.

Time has been a focus of mine, lately. Dealing with self-discipline and reality, shoving through the things that bother me, realizing that it's past midnight right now and I'm exhausted and I'm going to be up in less than seven hours and I lost myself at the computer again.

Goddammit.

2010-04-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

Hey GV8,

So... email, I know. Lame. But talking to you messes me up and then I'm all horrible for the next few days. I'd like to request that you don't respond to this email... it would hurt me even more than writing it already has.

You say that our dating window is up, but I don't believe that's true. We still love each other, we still connect. Just because reality interferes doesn't mean that the dating window ends. I think if we get near each other again, it's just going to happen again, no matter what we tell ourselves.

And by both of our own reasonings, it's not going to work. Core value issues.

Each time I talk to you, my hopes get up. Fairies, pixies, leprechauns, all that. Waiting for some magical solution to all this so I don't have to be away from you any longer. It feels so awful to be without you, so gut-wrong. I have to tell myself that my instincts are wrong, that I can't trust myself, and it's not easy.

But you said that's the way it is. Over and done with.

I can't accept that.

There's nothing to be done about it, though. Arguing won't change the way things are.

So until I can accept what you've already accepted, I can't interact with you without damaging myself. There are so many things I need to do this summer to get my life where I want it to be and I won't be able to do it if you're there... but not -with- me. I'm still too in love and too hopeful, still haven't accepted reality.

Kinda sad that I can't knock this fairytale out of my head.

I do love you and I do want you in my life again, even if it means only as friends. But that friendship is just going to blow up in both our faces if I can't get my feelings for you under control and accept that neither one of us is going to be able change enough to make a relationship possible.

So I'm going to take time to myself and try to be happy, healthy, and productive. Learn to be okay with a life that doesn't have you as a main feature.

I will call you when I think I've hit that point, though I don't know how long that will take.

If you need me, for any reason, please call. And if you find a pot of gold and some wish-granting leprechauns, let me know.

I love you. You've given me such a wonderful year with so many amazing memories and experiences, shown me that such deep connection with another person, a thing that I've only dreamed of, is possible. I've learned and grown so much because of you and I'm incredibly grateful for that and all the support and love you've given me. I hope I will continue to do you proud, and when we speak next it will be full of love and friendship.

Many hugs,
V

2010-04-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

Tonight's post has gone on a trip to the vacation hot-spot for blogs: Meditations in an Emergency, as its founder, the dashing Mysterg, is off being a world traveler and left us fellow bloggers behind, living vicariously through his life of adventure... and guest-posting on his blog.

So you can find it here.

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me...

2010-04-21T21:18:00.001-07:00

I have to say, this is one of the rare times I don't want to be blogging because my mind is simply too full and I just want to retreat into my cave and not talk to anyone until it goes away, by either zombie attack or lobotomy.

That's right, baby. Brains: come and get 'em.

But since I missed last night's posting, here I am.

By "here" I mean sitting in my bed, wearing an ex-boyfriend's old thermal and shiny blue pajama bottoms with the phrase "Sweet Dreams" printed across the back in a sort of strange italics.

My hair is up in a bun because it's so cold I did not want to wash it and go to bed with hair that hadn't dried fully, so tomorrow is going to be an "interesting" hair day that will translate to me having it "bunned up" all day.

How many more "words" can I put in "quotations marks"?

At the top of my brainmush, is female competition combined with insulting phrasing that is inherently for female recipients, but really only exists to complain about whatever behavior isn't suiting the user at the time.

Which is, magically, how I can be a slut and a cocktease at the same time.

How do I achieve this remarkable feat? one may ask.

Simple. I just have to have two different men looking at me with two different different backgrounds.

The externally active one (meaning, to the person who doesn't understand my slightly odd pairings of words, the one who looks outside of himself to determine what is wrong with "society" and how he is more the result of what has been done to him than his own actions, or even more simply, the one who views the world out of pure egocentricity) will tend to label towards "slut"-themed words.

The internally active one (meaning the one who isn't quite bitter and egocentric enough to enforce his opinions on the rest of the world as The Way Things Should Be) will go towards the "cocktease" or "cunt"-themed words. Not near as aggressively judgmental.

What do they have in common? I'm not sleeping with either of them.

What you just read (or skimmed) above is a fairly common and generalized sentiment.

Men are bitter, angry, hostile, etc etc.

But what it is, though, is a way to control and influence. Girl isn't doing what you want, label her appropriately, get others to back you, have enough status that your label actually matters, or simply get fear of a word entrenched in a group... bingo- behavior will change.

What's worse, and what I've noticed more of these last few days, is when other women do it. Not only do they have to be concerned with their own sex life, but the sex lives of other girls. It's competition and, wow, unhappiness.

As why would a woman who is truly happy with her sex life and her sexual presentation (both socially and physically) care about what another woman is doing, and be anything but supportive as long as the other is safe and happy?

Especially among friends.

And before someone reading this gets the idea that I had some traumatic experience in the last few days/hours/weeks with a girl going off on me, you'd be incorrect. As for a guy going off on me? Not so much either.

Continuing.

I can't tell if the competition at this point is to see who can snag the best man or who can make the others around her more miserable.

I mean, really, that's how you win, right? You get the alpha football jock millionaire high status star and you've won! And then, OMG, you lord him and your acquired status over your girlfriends and they all look at you in envy. Or you make sure that since you're so very unhappy with what you've done with your life, that no one else can be happy and make you feel worse with their success.

I've been reading these MRA blogs about honor and values and how women simply lack them. That's right, kids, women don't have morals. I believe there's supposed to be a genetic difference, some part of the brain that prevented morals (back to the lobotomy, eh, Jones?).

And when I see these women that tout themselves as MRA supporters or anti-feminism supporters, I've just got to sit back and watch the magic.

By magic, I mean grown women behaving like an idiotic school of fish, hanging out in the water, mouths open, begging for the validation of whatever MRA man will come along and tell them that they are special, that they do understand, and that they've got this lovely little doggie bed for them in the garage.

Because these women are actively advocating that they are inferior purely due to biology. That their physical sex is the determining factor on who they are, what they can do, and what morals they can possess.

I can't even read this stuff all the way through.

I'm not a feminist. I don't advocate social change based on my own idea of what society should be. I simply don't have a social -ism or an -ist or any sort of label to apply to my belief set so I can communicate them to others in an attempt at conversion.

Someone tries to talk politics to me? I apologize, tell them I'm dreadfully ignorant, and completely apolitical.
Someone tries to talk religion? No, don't do that either.
Philosophy? Nope.
Sexuality? Oh, hell no.

I'm not going to get into it any place other than online (and for me to step far outside my blog for any significant length of time is uncommon).

Because they're simply beliefs. It's not reality. My believing in the things I do does not make them correct, and it certainly doesn't make them more valid than any other set of beliefs that any other person has. And for me to attempt to force my beliefs on others is an exercise in selfishness and ego-stroking that I don't desire to pursue.

I'll stroke my ego in other ways. Usually with physical action that requires stroking. (wink wink, nudge nudge)

I was going to continue that above parenthetical remark into the rest of the Monty Python skit, but then realized how disconcerting that would be to anyone who hasn't seen it. Yes, you all disappoint me. Except for you. You can stay.

So, to bring that back, controlling others through words, through strength of words, and then having that reinforced by people who should emphasize with the negativity of those words... no. We assign such a high value to words without even realizing it.

I hate how we cut ourselves down, and then we go to be pet by the person who handed us the ax. I'm not a dog, I'm not going to have my "master" sic me on other people.

And this leads into my concerns with GV8, concerns that I've spent all week trying to avoid, only to have them come up again.

I'm 26. I'm now on my downslope. I'm not getting hotter each year, I'm declining. I have to fight to keep my body healthy and in shape. As much as it's going to get, anyway. I have somewhere between ten and fourteen years where I can reproduce.

And then that's it. Uteral party is over.

That's my window.

Crazy how it creeps up on you.

I have to find someone within the next two years, just as I slide into my late twenties. And then I will be, in all likelihood, finding lower and lower quality males that are willing to accept me in my "declining" years. (Aldonza, I have to say I am imagining you shaking your head at me right now and I fully give you permission to boot me in the head later.)

So I've got two years that are no longer optimal, then I have to marry, go through the honeymoon phase, and then pop out a kid or two, hopefully by thirty-five.

It seems like such a brief window.

And that's assuming that I ever find a man that I get along with enough to consider marriage. Yes, I have male attention. But, as has been noted again and again, I'm a bit... intense. I have to have a man that can handle that, and handle it well.

It drives me nuts to think that, for so many, my desirability is not based on my brain, my character, my too-extreme Disney-like morals, but my appearance. And this is accepted. This is the way it is. And there's validation for it. Attractiveness declines with fertility leaving. Of course, that could very well be another chicken-and-egg argument. Then add in Darwin's idea of sexual selection and twist it up more and there you go. Madness. Sparta. Of course, if I recall correctly, Darwin said females choose, males court, but I think it spins both ways because one has to have power to choose, which means one has to be desirable enough to battle over.

So there you go.

Which means that every day I spend moping over GV8, or spend with GV8 (which encourages more moping) is a day that is wasted. Because he's too old, likely not going to marry, and he's now sterile. As long as I'm hung up on him, I cannot truly engage with another male.

But that's just from a biological standpoint.

When you layer in the psychology, the emotions, the personal growth, the life experience through hypergamy... it swings it back around until we're in this limbo where it could either be positive or negative.

And in the end, it just drives me crazy to think about.

So, with the words of god knows how many people ringing in my ears, I called GV8 to tell him that I couldn't do this to myself. I couldn't keep spending time with a man that wouldn't give me monogamy, marriage, or munchkins.

I wanted him to give me a counter-argument, maybe tell me he'd be willing to drop his sport-fucking outside of swing clubs.

Tell me that our relationship was more important than his sport-fucking.

Yeah, that'd be nice.

Instead, he agreed with me. Of course. So not only did I not get an argument, I also lost the high of being the ditcher as opposed to the ditchee.

He's not going to change, I can't ask him to change, sport-fucking is something he's been doing for thirty years and he's not going to give it up, it's as natural to him as breathing. We need to be friends, we've exceeded our "dating window", five break-ups is too many, we need to give up on it.

And I'm sitting there, going "fuck, really?" because now he's taking control of the situation and telling me all these things that I was going to tell him. Which left me feeling incredibly insecure and lacking in validation.

He's way too good at this.

So then I end up pursuing. Not saying that we needed to get back together, but that it bothered me how easy it all was for him, how sad it makes me that he's so willing to give me up for sport-fucking, how rarely he shows his emotions, how surprised that he felt our "dating window" was up. Trying to get that emotional acknowledgment, hating that he's so much stronger than I am.

We were going to go out on Saturday. I called to tell him that wasn't such a good idea. By the end of the conversation, we're back on for a tentative Saturday and I'm here thinking, "Christ, he did it again." Or maybe that should be: "Christ, I did it again."

I'm supposed to call him later in the week to confirm if it's a yes or a no, think on it some.

We talk to each other and... melt.

I got his hackles up a bit, more than once. Pissed him off a couple times. I never used to monitor him so finely, but talking with Roman has made me even more aware of conversational twitches, and the space since GV8 and I last talked allowed me to get my feet under me somewhat so I could play with the conversation, be a little more assertive.

Though at the end I started to crumble. Losing words. Unable or unwilling to articulate the mess in my head.

This is the second time I've considered and decided to take a step away from him.

Each time, I've been blocked by him.

But I think this time, he is set that it is over.

I wish I could have been the one to make that call. He takes control of every conversation and by the end of it, flips me around like Alice down the rabbit hole.

Now I don't know what he wants, what he's planning, and I hate to think that he's done with me so easily. I wish I could see into him like I do others, see that he hurts, that he misses me and hates doing this, as opposed to those words that I hear... but no emotion attached. It would make this so much easier.

He makes me so weak. I let him. I drink him down with Hope for a chaser.

2010-04-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

There's been a bit of drama in the parental abode.

It has been one of those "he said, she said" things. Only this time it concerns my sister and the navy man who has been renting a room from us for the past six or so months.

It's a complicated situation.

They got a few drinks at a bar, danced, and came back to my parents' house and went to his room to watch a movie.

My sister says that he started forcing himself on her, pressuring her, before finally listening to her and backing off.
He says that they shared a brief kiss, then stopped themselves and realized that it would not be a good idea to continue further due to the living situation.

It's hard because she's my sister. I have to take her side in such gray areas because she is the one I'm going to be growing old with. Husbands divorce, friends fade, but family is family.

But she's a prude. And she's prone to a sort of bitchy set of mild hysterics. And she exaggerates. And she's defensive as hell. And she'll shove off blame.

He, on the other hand, is a sweet young man. He's the son of a family friend who wanted to get out of the area he was living in so he could get a better job and go back to school. He's been very supportive of the family as we've been going through these rough last months, what with Dad going mentally AWOL. He's been vital to keeping my mother sane when I'm unable to be there for her, and when she's stuck alone in the house, wondering what happened to the future that Jack built.

But he's an incredible horndog. Guys talk to me, guys talk to me a lot. I hear fantasies and realities and fetishes and guilt complexes. I hear bad things that they've done to women, how they've cheated on their partners in horrific ways, I hear the pranks and the gossip.

Talking with him, sometimes I wonder if all the men who I've sat and talked with over the years were hiding the true level of sexual need they keep bottled under their skin. This guy is almost, what my father calls, a walking life-support system for his dick.

Which is probably pretty typical for a very attractive, very active 22 year old male.

He's still a sweetheart. He's still intensely loyal and devoted to improving his future and serving his country (which isn't my bag, but he's dedicated to his beliefs which is admirable).

So they're telling two different stories. The navy man might be finding himself promptly ejected from the house... which would bone him on many levels.

I was talking with my buddy, Chris, about this earlier today. He said the truth is likely in the middle of the two stories.

I'm so used to thinking that it's one way or the other, not a combination plate with beans and rice.

This all happening... brought more light onto the current situation.

Since December, when my father went off the proverbial deep end, I've become the "man of the house".

You see, his recovery period has left him feeling full of self-doubt and major depression. When he's not working on his business, he tends to tune out watching television or, more often, sleeping the day away.

It's very hard for him.

All of his adult life, and some time before that, he's been the smartest guy in the room. And I don't mean booksmart, but lifesmart. He's got this "I know what I'm doing and this is the right way to be" total self-confidence. And he does have the book-knowledge and the life experience to back that up.

He doesn't doubt himself. Or, at least, he doesn't appear to doubt himself.

He is the total stoic male. He doesn't like holidays, he doesn't like socializing, he doesn't like playing cards or board games. He doesn't like Disneyland. He doesn't like cartoons. Shopping for him at Christmas is an exercise in frustration and, really, repetition. Power tools and barbeque utensils. Maybe a sweater for the office for casual days. A tie or two. Every few years, a new watch.

He doesn't join in. He's "outside" the family, as much as we try to bring him in.

A fourth wheel.

He doesn't bond, he doesn't disclose, he doesn't open up, and it's only been within the last year that he's started apologizing.

And I do mean that. My mother called me in shock earlier last year, telling me that my father had actually apologized to her for something. She was blown away. Hell, I was blown away.

In his worldview, he is never wrong. He knows best. No one is as smart as him. No one has been through the things he has been through.

End. Of. Story.

Which has given me some mental kinks, I'll say.

So when his mind went bust last December, when his idea of reality was suddenly incredibly false and his behaviors beyond erratic to the point to where we were having to physically encircle him in the ER in order to keep him from escaping... god, does that hurt.

You can't trust yourself. You can't trust what you think, what you feel, how you react.

For the alpha male of the house, for Mr. I-Know-What's-Right, that's shattering.

Everything you know is truly, potentially wrong.

So he's withdrawn into himself.

He's not making decisions, he's not giving input, he's not reigning in my sister when she goes on another one of her queen-bitch tears.

And my mom who married a very dominant male much to early, who never got a chance to establish herself, take care of herself and her life, determine how things should be... she's left running the show.

But she doesn't know how.

And she certainly can't control my sister.

So she calls me. Like she used to call Dad, or sit and talk with him after dinner, once my sister and I went to bed. Trying to figure out how to handle certain situations (admittedly, most of those situations revolved around me and my poor behavior). She'd talk and he'd listen and then he'd tell her what to do. And if she didn't do it, if she told him she didn't want to take such extreme action so fast, he'd let it sit until she got upset about it again and he would fly down from Mount Olympus (not really) and hand the situation with an iron fist.

When she calls, I don't tell her what to do. I give her thoughts, new angles to think about things. My input. And she'll ask what I would do if I were her. She wants to know what to do, she can't decide it on her own.

I wonder if she was ever really allowed to make those decisions. I mean, yes, she'd make decisions after consult with my father, but never with the decisiveness that he'd end up taking. The impact from her decisions was never enough to resolve the problem. Her decisions were never validated by the results. Therefore, her decision-making ability was never encouraged, so she never developed the faith in her own decisions that was needed to carry out future, harder decisions.

Dad would always have to do it. Dad would be the bearer of the final straw.

So now it's me.

Me until he gets his feet back under him.

I don't even live there.

And I don't mind it. I like being there for my mother.

But it is very, very much a reminder of ways I could have been. Ways I could be, if I lose myself too early with GV8. If I submit without establishing myself and faith in myself, which is something I do need. This apartment, this living situation, finally being out on my own by myself, taking care of everything by myself... it's something that so many people who have cared about me for so long have pushed me towards.

I haven't lost respect for my mother for this. Some people would, I know. Be strong, believe in yourself, don't let a man dominate you, don't lose yourself. It's so easy.

But it's not so easy. Not for everyone. Maybe for them.

She's devoted her life to my father and to her children. She tells me that she never had any dreams, never any goals, other than having children. Not as an end all be all dream, but as a Something I Want To Do goal.

I don't think that's bad or worthy of looking down my nose at.

I understand it too well. Both of us were raised in unstable homes with a very dominant male figure. I'm still not adjusted to the idea of taking care of myself, of being truly responsible for myself. I've gone from my father to boyfriend to boyfriend.

But this is a different time from when she was growing up.

And my father, her husband, is no where near as bad as my grandfather. Not that he was a bad person, but certainly a hard one to be raised by, to learn from as a relationship-template.

People shove at me to live the way I should. My brain, my... strength? The independence that I prize so much. It's hard for them to wrap around the idea that I'm not what they picture me to be. I'm closer than I was, but I'm still not there.

Even so, at 26, I'm more experienced than my mother's 55.

Correction. At 26, I'm more experienced at taking care of myself and making impactful decisions than my mother is at 55. But she's vastly more experienced in raising children, in bookkeeping and insurance and making lunches, cooking well-rounded meals, keeping my father's rages in check, ironing, doing laundry, making beds, organizing family get-togethers...

It's living. What we devote time to, we learn.

She learned other things, making me healthy and strong. Trying to teach me to be independent in ways she never was.

And now I get to be those things for her.

2010-04-18T21:50:00.000-07:00

I went to a party on Saturday night with my club friend who I had, in a combo fit of needed to let parts of me run wild and gratefulness, locked lips with for a little too long at a club two weeks ago.

Telling him at the beginning and the middle that this was a one time deal.

Of course, a week later, we were out at another club and I was frisky.

The amount of time was less, but we were very much more in public, with friends. With lots of friends. Part of it was me simply being silly and getting him to stop teasing people by keeping his mouth occupied.

So... that happened.

And he called to ask me to go to this party with him (which ended up, oddly enough, being the birthday party of someone I've been acquainted with for the last ten years) on Saturday.

I said yes because I do really like him... as a friend. He's an amazingly good person, not a "good guy" that is just a beta push-over, but more like a grizzly bear. He works at various clubs, bounces, does set-up and tear-down, and he's always there for his friends with no motivation other than genuine caring. So when guys get too aggressive, he steps up and knocks them down with one huge paw. And his female friends get too drunk and start bawling all over the place, he'll hold them and talk to them and give them a ride home- without ever touching them (unless it's to carry them).

But it's never as a doormat. He's supportive without anyone using him or looking down on him. He doesn't take shit from anyone, and he will lay down the law when need be.

I find that very rare.

Anyway.

He asked me to go to the party with him, and since I was oddly free Saturday night, and wanted to be somewhere to get my mind off of GV8 and the club, I said yes.

So we get there and I get introduced to the people I don't know and we get a tour of the house (which includes even more people), and then I run out to my car to put my jacket away, leaving my friend talking with this cute little married couple.

I come back and he says, "Hey, V, show them how you shut me up."

Which is... no. No. You don't put me on the spot like that. You don't fence me in publicly to get access to me. I am not a dancing bear and I am not going to play along with your games.

So I sauntered up to him, leaned against his side, facing the couple in front of us, and said, "Well, usually I just say something overly sexual and it just shuts him right up."

He's known for being a bit of a hound, and quite perverted, so this was an easy out for me. That's a conversation starter. Random girl says something overly sexual and it shuts his brain down? Oh, do tell.

I thought it would be fine. I thought the conversation would shift.

He looks down at me, as he's about six to eight inches taller than my 5'9", and says, "No the other thing you do to shut me up."

Which leaves me just looking at him for a half-second in disbelief.

Really? You're not going to let this one slide?

So I spit out some elaboration on my previous statement, about how prude he is, how easily he blushes, how kids say the darnedest things. Okay, not that last one.

"No, V, the other thing."

And then he grabs my hand and the back of my neck and pulls me in.

This is when two years of swing dancing kicks in.

I could have just yanked back hard and completely rejected him in a social setting, surrounded by his friends and some people I have known for years without actually getting to know them.

Instead I let him pull me in half a step, then ducked and rolled my head out of his grip while using the momentum he had created while pulling me in to do a quick spin that landed me in his arms... facing away from him. Looking like he had pulled me into a hug that allowed me to continue talking to the couple.

Didn't even have to think about it.

And, once I had dodged that situation, I did not think about it at all.

Until I was talking to him later, mentioning I was getting sick. And he said, "Oh, I was wondering why you wouldn't... I figured you were having an outbreak..." trail off. And I'm sitting here going, as per usual: wtf?

It hadn't sunk in. That this was it. That was the contact he was getting, doled out at my discretion, which was supposed to be a one-night event. Which is what I told him.

Because I kissed him the second time, he assumed that he'd have open access to my mouth?

This was after, though, we met up, when there was plenty of time to molest him. And when he went to hug me hello, I kept my head down. And I told him that GV8 was back sniffing around.

So I'm staring at him.

He tried to trap me in a small net of social expectations, tried to get me to kiss him again.

It's sad because, wow, it's so just kissing. I've done more than that on way too many first dates. And I'm sitting here being prudishly annoyed that he attempted to kiss me. Wow. Lips. Craaaaaziness.

But you don't do that. You don't do the social entrapment. This is not how it works. I am not obligated to lend you credibility. I am not going to perform an action because you tell someone else I will.

It does not happen that way.

And, in other news, the texting fiend (I want to say "moron" at this juncture because I'm so irritated) is back.

Tuesday, he asks me if I'm going clubbing this weekend at all. I tell him no, too busy.

We text back and forth for about twenty minutes, then he asks me out for the weekend.

No, I'm still too busy.

Wednesday, he texts me to ask me out shopping for the weekend.

Nope, still too busy this weekend. Plans are still made.

TODAY, while I'm having Sunday dinner with my family, he texts me to ask me if I'm going clubbing tonight.

I just stared at my phone.

I deal with this at work way too often. People who don't read their emails all the way through, people that are too lazy to open files and ask the same question over and over again so I keep having to forward them the same email over and over again.

It's a peeve.

If he's not going to remember my texts, I'm not going to send them. There's no point.

Between those two and GV8, I'm mightily annoyed with menfolk right now.

2010-04-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

GV8 called.

Here, when I thought I was going to be able to move on, abandoned for the rock star lifestyle he loves so well.

He called me while they were filming a porn at the club, apparently featuring dripping wet, latex-covered women. Porn shoot the day prior. He directed me to the site of some porn star(?) so I could see the results of an earlier photo shoot.

Over the course of the conversation, he told me he missed me, that he loved me, that it felt strange that I, who had been at the beginning of this whole adult club thing with him, would not be there opening night. That my text message to him the day the club opened, wishing him success, added to his already full head of thoughts of me.

That it felt wrong that I wasn't there.

He asked what I had been up to, told me he was proud of how much I had grown in the last few months, how together my life was, that every time he talked to me, he was made even more proud of what I was doing.

I did not tell him I missed him.
I did not tell him I loved him.

He told me he wanted to see me. I asked when would be good for him.

He said to pick a day anytime after the 19th, and he'd be there. That he was going to accommodate my schedule. I'm always the one doing the accommodating, and I mentioned this to him. He said it was only fair, for all the times I've rearranged everything to be with him.

So I told him next Saturday. I wanted to go to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. He could join me, if he liked. He agreed.

I mentioned that I was going clubbing afterwards. He said he would not join me because he would likely run into people he knows, which would make things awkward... as he picks up ass like you would not believe. Reminding me that this is the man who engineered a foursome with three chicks that happened to be walking by his apartment simply by using three bottles of beer.

Brought me back to reality.

I asked him what we were doing. He said that we were getting to know each other again.

He asked if I had been moving forward. Forward? Forward, he said, moving past him, into my future.

No.

Then, yes.

I assumed that I'd never hear from him again, after he didn't respond to my text message. That things were over, he had fully submerged himself in being his wild, alpha male self.

That I had been moving forward. Not dating, but getting it into my head that he was gone. Trying to move past it so I would stop having this plague of dreams of him and the club that I've been experiencing so often of late. That my body would finally unwind, I'd stop grinding my teeth so hard whether awake or asleep. My jaw, my neck, I may look calm, but touch either when I am under stress and you will know.

He said if I needed to think about it, to take some time. But I could call during the week, if I wanted. Radio silence over.

I said I didn't know. That I had to think. I'd call him later in the week to confirm our date.

I love him, though I did not tell him that. I miss him, though I would not directly say those words to him.

My ethics when it comes to relationships... honesty and communication. Not stringing someone along. Making decisions.

I hate lingering, I hate indecisiveness.

I hate knowing that this will never work, that I've lost too much faith in him and I don't know how he'd ever build it back. And I could never be okay with his roaming ways. He's already given me one STD, I don't need any more.

But this... I don't have to play by rules anymore. I don't have to make a decision, I don't have to include him in my life, nor sleep with him again. I need to (wo)man up and stop folding to what he wants. He knows what I want. He's trying to take small steps to give it to me, without fully submitting and giving up that which he will not deny himself: the leeway to surrender to lust with any hot thing that walks by.

By going out with him, I'm not committing to anything.

But I am setting myself up for more heartbreak. I can't keep emotionally distant from him like I can from other men, so easy.

Which means I need to get my final paper written before this goes down in flames. I am not going to go through what I did last semester, and what I did during midterms. This is not going to get fucked up again, to put it bluntly.

I owe him nothing, I owe myself everything.

I have to maintain.

2010-04-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

My brain is a bit of a mush pile right now.

I'm sick, I'm tired, and I've been going near non-stop today. It's been really productive, but I'm ready for bed.

The post from yesterday reminded me of this guy from nearly two years ago now.

He was a ginger kid.

I'm not a fan of ginger kids.

Strike that. I'm not a fan of male ginger kids. Something about it creeps me out.

Anyway, I met him when I was still dating Darkeyes, at the tail end of our relationship. We were living together in a cute little apartment I found, trying to make things work.

And this guy, who I am going to call "Ginger" and hope that I don't associate it too much with Gilligan's Island, was introduced to me by one of my best friends while at a club.

I assumed that, because this particular friend had introduced us, Ginger was an okay guy. Just initially creepy. So I was friendly and chatty and mentioned I had a boyfriend straight off the bat to counteract any attention he might float my way.

You see, in my silly world, when someone has a significant other, you don't pursue them.

He continued to unnerve me all throughout the evening, but I was convinced in seeing the good in this person that was a friend of my best friend, who had left the club early.

Due to meeting Ginger, a new social group at the club was opened up to me. I suddenly found myself in the midst of all these people who were quite friendly and fun to be around, people I hadn't really talked to before, but had seen at the various clubs.

So when they said they were going to drive over to Fred 62's (a cute little 24 hour diner in Silverlake) post-club and Ginger invited me to join them, I agreed. I'm always up for new 24 hour diners, as sometimes I don't want to sleep and would rather be out at a diner reading until 4AM.

Sign number one that I dismissed:

When I asked Ginger for directions, he said he'd drive me.

I told him no, I'd drive myself.

He insisted that he would drive us.

I told him again, no.

But, really, he should drive. I don't know where I'm going, it's just easier, get in the car.

If I had been younger and less experienced, I would have submitted to this rather than cause a scene.

I balked like you would not believe. There was nothing on the planet at that moment that would get me to give up access to my car.

This is a major rule of mine: always always always be in control of your own transportation. If you aren't, you are at the mercy of others. Your time is not your own, which means your body is not your own, nor are your desires taken into account.

With a disgusted grunt, he gave up and told me to follow him to the diner.

By this point in the evening, I had made sure to bring up my boyfriend in conversation multiple times, just to lay extra groundwork. This relaxed me, made me feel like he got the point that I was inaccessible. My work here was done. I could enjoy my evening, free from worry that this guy would try anything.

So we parked at the lot across the street, walked over, and since there were so many of us there we had to sit outside at a large, round table.

He chose, of course, to sit next to me, legs brushing, until I moved away.

Then I noticed my hair was all over the place from dancing, knotted and tangled, so I stood to go get my brush out of the car.

He stopped me, insisting that he had a brush in his car and he would go fetch it for me, and trotted off down the street.

Which was... odd.

But not disturbing.

What got me, more than the car thing, more than his flirtations at the club, more than him insisting he buy me drinks (I hate that), more than his faux-accidental touches, was what happened next.

He came back and I brushed out my hair.

That taken care of, I realized I was still wearing dark lipstick that would immediately begin to look odd once I started to eat, as I was wearing a sealant on top of it. This causes it to rub off in patches, which makes me look like my lips have leprosy. Having a bottle of water at the club has no effect on it, kissing barely moves it, but eating an entire meal... not so much.

So I grabbed a napkin and started scrubbing at it, taking condensation off the outside of my glass to moisten it, checking it every few seconds to see if red was still coming off.

Finally, I asked the girl across from me if I still had lipstick on.

She said that I did, and pointed at a spot on her lip to indicate where it was.

So I scrubbed at that spot, checked with her again. Still there.

Repeat.

By that time, there was a conversation going on about that particular sealing product, with me making jokes about how long it could stay on and how little would budge it and how moronic I felt to be sitting outside a diner coming up on 4AM scrubbing at my lips with a paper napkin that was falling to pieces.

Ginger, Ginger decides he wants to play the hero.

He reaches for my face.

I jerk back. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to get the lipstick for you."

"I've got it, thanks."

He reaches again, his thumb going for my lip. "It's cool, I'll get it," I tell him.

"You keep missing it. I'll get it."

"No, I've got it."

"No, I'll get it."

"I'm fine."

"Just let me get it."

Finally, I submitted. I didn't want to cause a scene. He was the friend of my best friend. I'd deal with it.

So he leaned over to me and scrubbed at my lip with his bare thumb.

And I took it like a little bitch, uncomfortable, but still naive enough to believe that because he knew I had a boyfriend, he wouldn't try to seduce me.

When I mentioned I was good at Scrabble, he offered to get coffee with me and challenge me to a game.

I took him up on it, telling him I'd have to check my schedule with my boyfriend, but it should be fine.

The next week, we met up for Scrabble. And it was fine. I kicked his ass, like I knew I would. We grabbed pizza and talked. It wasn't awkward anymore, he wasn't hitting on me. It was okay.

That night, Darkeyes and I broke up.

A week or two later, he asked if I wanted to go see a movie.

I agreed, but then asked my best friend what was going on with this guy. He was creeping me out. Why did he like Ginger? It didn't make sense.

My friend tells me he barely knows Ginger, he just introduced him to be polite. That he's just an acquaintance that he talks to once every few months. And, by the way, did I hear that he bullied one of our mutual friends into sleeping with him just a few months ago?

Oh.

I decide that I don't want to go out with Ginger the next day, so I IM him to tell him I'm just not feeling up to it.

He throws a fit. He wants to know why. He needs that explanation. He demands it.

And I'm sitting there, staring at my screen.

You see, at this time of my life, I was a bit of a nobody. I could dance, but I was a zero on the social screen. In the club scene, I had very few friends. I'd go, I'd dance, I'd leave.

I desperately wanted to be one of the club kids again, like when I was younger. I wanted to fit in and be social and go to the parties. Have friends to talk to when I was cooling down from dancing.

I did not want to piss this guy off. He was a gateway into other people.

So I tried to tell him that I was not feeling comfortable going out so soon after a break up. That I wasn't looking to date right now, I just wanted friends, but I needed to get my life together.

It wasn't good enough. He kicked, he screamed, he demanded his pacifier.

He would not take no for an answer.

So, instead of telling him I thought he was a pushy, creepy douchebag with no respect for women and crazy bug eyes, I told him that his coloring was unattractive to me.

That all ginger coloring on men was unattractive to me.

Trying to exclude, rather than reject.

That wasn't good enough either.

He had to know what it was about his coloring. What right did I have to have such a reaction? What feelings did it instill in me? How dare I?

My explanation, which was honest and polite, just a gut reaction to something unusual (which, when he demanded an elaboration, I told him it was like when you first see a person born with only four toes on one foot- they can still walk, it just makes you double take for a second)... yeah, then he freaked out and accused me of calling him physically disabled and that I was prejudiced against the handicapped.

It was a weird conversation. I wish I had logged it.

In the end, when I called him by his nickname instead of his given name, he cut me off, saying that only acquaintances called him by his nickname, and that true friends called him by his real name. So I wasn't really a friend. And it needed to stay that way.

Which left me staring at my screen with a bemused "WTF?" expression on my face.

But his parting gift, the cherry on my sundae, was a link he sent me.

Not trusting it, I asked him what it was.

He told me it was a BDSM checklist, illustrating his various kinks, so that when I found myself a Dom, I'd know what I was missing.

Even now, looking back on that, my eyes glaze over.

I was so lost. We went from me having a boyfriend to no boyfriend to suddenly this man is passing me a list of how sexually great he is and how much I'm going to regret passing up an offer he never made.

This, this is not the worst example I could give about trying to compassionately reject a man and having it blow up in my face.

Not at all.

I called my friend and would-be lover, Wolfboy, after that. I told him that this ginger kid had creeped me out and I needed down time and cuddles to get back to my baseline. So, after work, I drove over there, told him the story, and he had yes watch the ginger kid episode from South Park. Which was amazing.

Fast forward a few months and I'm on a first date at a coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard with a guy I'm getting along with quite well. In the middle of the date, he gets a phone call.

From Ginger.

Yeah.

In one of a series of acts of revenge, Ginger got one of his friends who I had never met before to ask me out to see if he could sleep with me or at least get some sort of juicy gossip.

When neither happened, they made their own up.

I went out on another date with another guy from a completely different scene. We sat down at this restaurant in Manhattan Beach and this guy told me he had two motives for asking me out. One, purely sexual. The second, he had seen my picture before due to Ginger and wanted to let me know that Ginger and his friends had been spreading particular rumors about me around the club scene for several months.

Which explained some things.

So I'm sitting there, just staring at this guy because I can't believe that Ginger is still waging war against me.

Around this time was when I picked up my copy of The Game.

Which led into books on body language, seduction, social dynamics, and evo psych.

I was not going to let this happen again. I was going to use methods within these books, within my own intelligence, to get at a higher social level than this man and turn his rumors back on him.

And I did.

Seduction one-on-one, I had down okay.

It was the social net-making I was unsure on.

It took me about four months to get where I needed to be, slowly undermining his pillars by raising my own, meeting the right people, playing the right roles. Each time I went out, each phone call I made or email I sent was another stitch in what I was weaving.

It wasn't all mercenary. I enjoyed the people I was meeting, enjoyed the socialization, being out under the lime light, coming into my own. I was able to do it because I had a reason.

Our last extended encounter was at a birthday party. I was invited by a friend who was given permission to bring more girls if possible. You know, one of those invites.

When he walked in, I took one look and thought to myself, "I'm going to own him and he's going to know it."

I spent the entire party quite happily putting my newly acquired skills to use. He watched me, he knew what was going on, he just didn't know how to stop it. He knew I was doing something, that I was the reason he was wedged into a corner and either being ignored or glared at by the other twenty to thirty people there, some of which had been his friends.

But he couldn't do anything.

After near an hour of this, he left in disgust.

I've barely seen him out at clubs in the last six months, ever since I cleaved off the important half of his social group by befriending a particular man and making sure that I was not only my adorable, teasing self, but highly sexually desirable. With that man, a series of people dominoed away from Ginger, leaving him very high and dry.

People don't speak well of him.

But it doesn't matter anymore.

He's gone, and if he comes back, I'll make sure he's uncomfortable.

2010-04-14T22:09:00.000-07:00

The texting guy from yesterday texted me to ask me out again for this weekend.

Which makes it a total of three times I've had to tell him that I'm too busy. Because I am. Party on Saturday night with my club friend (where I get to sit him down again and tell him again that I am not interested in him as more than a good friend, and also, while we're on the topic, I found out that he's an insane playboy with loads more sexual experience than I have, at least in certain areas, so why is he emotionally attaching to me when he knows better?), Saturday day is a lapdance class with a friend, Sunday is my mother's birthday, an all day event.

I'm oddly not busy on Friday night. I'm not sure what to make of that. If I didn't have to be up early for the class on Sunday morning, I'd hit a club. I still might, if I'm in the mood. I'm all for wiping myself out.

But enough about my plans.

I've had two particular questions asked of me that I should probably address.

The first was by Phoenixism who wanted to know if I had a special magnetism for attracting socially inept men.

Yes. Yes, I do.

But since I can't see myself, I'm just going to go off of theory.

The initial approach is appearance. I'm pretty. I'm not gorgeous, I'm not beautiful, I'm approachably pretty. I am accessible, so those men who would be chased off of a girl because they feel she's above their "level" come to me.

When it comes to wardrobe, I'm also accessible. I am not showing the Los Angeles mass that I believe I am high status in my presentation. I don't overdo it, I keep things very mellow, well-fitting, and casual. I don't walk outside for day explorations with a second skin of make-up. I wear dark-framed glasses, but not in that indie-scenster kinda way, but in the "I'm a librarian and I'm studying you" kinda way.

Socially, if I'm just out and going about my day, I'm by myself as often as I can manage. This makes me even more approachable, as I'm not with a group of my nearest and dearest girlfriends. And when I saw I'm out alone, I don't mean I'm simply grocery shopping. I mean that if I don't have plans with someone, I will grab a book, go catch a movie, then maybe do a little shopping and sit at a nice little restaurant and enjoy a meal and my novel... and then maybe I'll wander around the city, poking my nose into whatever looks interesting.

-Girl who is approachably pretty, check.
-Girl who is not flashing high-status unapproachable via her presentation, check.
-Girl who is wearing glasses that add a little something, check.
-Girl who is reading a book, making opening even easier, check.
-Girl who is alone and infinitely more likely to be approached because of accessibility, check.

So that's just the simple initial information gathering pre-approach.

Then we talk and, holy crap, I'm not a moron. These shy, nerdy guys who are getting out there socially are startled and pleased. The older men that walk up to me expecting god knows what realize that there's a conversation partner beneath these boobs.

And I get the nerd jokes. I read so much, I play console and computer games, I've watched way too many Mutant Enemy productions, I know the internet memes, I can quote RvB, I can discuss anime and World of Warcraft without hesitating. I'm not going to judge them, and I'm going to understand their humor.

In a world of women that while never understand their nerdy male pursuits, I'm right in there enjoying those pursuits with them.

And since they usually aren't out there meeting women, they think this is incredibly rare. Which causes a sort of desperation fixation. I'm the only girl they're ever going to meet that will understand them, so they must make sure to win me over any way possible.

As for the older men, I can keep up with them, and usually overshoot them. It's not an awkward, stilted conversation that trails off into... bleh. Which maybe they'd like, I really don't know. I'm able to manage topic flow and conversation focus, which is so nice for both of us.

Which, really, if you look at it a certain way, is inconsequential.

My primary failing is that I like meeting people, like learning about people, and I'm never intentionally rude without someone first passing a boundary... and my social morals that allow me to engage in rude behavior so far out there that I rarely get to unleash my inner-bitch on people.

If I continue talking with them, they, being inexperienced and unable to read into our conversation or my body language, will assume that it means I'm interested. That my attention could only be of romantic or sexual intent, as why else would I be talking to them?

Because I am unwilling to immediately shut down these guys, because I can get along with them and maintain the conversation because I'm interested in what they have to say and who they are, awkward situations ensue.

But what am I supposed to say?

"I don't mean to interrupt you, but I just wanted you to know that I'm talking to you because I find you interesting and have absolutely no desire for you, so keep it in your pants, buddy."

"Before you take this the wrong way, you're really not my type, but I'm digging hearing about your theory on the best way to play Young Link in SSBB, so don't take my fascination on this topic as fascination with you."

"You see how I just deflected that somewhat subtle innuendo you tossed out there? Yes, that means I'm not interested. It was cute, but, really, no."

"Since I think I'm just the hottest piece of ass out there and you obviously must want me due to that fact, I wanted to let you know that before this conversation goes any further, you're soooooo not alpha enough for me, so please don't even dream that I would have any interest in you. Thanks."

"Okay, I'm going to bring up sex now because it is relevant to our discussion. This. Does. Not. Mean. I. Want. To. Bone. You. Continuing..."

I've found that my hints, the cues that I would pick up if someone was having a discussion with me and I was testing the waters like these men do and was being rejected, don't work with most of these guys.

Some I have flat out told I have a boyfriend or I wasn't interested in dating right now or I wasn't emotionally available or I was too busy for a relationship.

Random excuses that were all semi-true to completely true.

But it does not deter them.

So why do I attract these guys? I'm visually approachable, physically accessible (no, not in that way, you jerk), and I'm friendly.

I do not have disgust or hatred for these guys. I don't find them annoying or pathetic. I think it's wonderful that the nerd guys are getting out of their comfort zone and meeting women. I think it's flattering when the older men try to pick up on me, and very entertaining when they realize I'm not an airhead.

But there is that learning curve of figuring out how to attract what you want and reading the signs that tell you that your target is not interested. And then respecting that lack of interest, or at least adjusting your game to hopefully generate interest.

If it doesn't work, though, move on. Don't make it awkward, don't be pushy, don't make a scene.

So that was the first question.

The second question has been asked a couple times, especially of late due to all my bitching about men I'm not interested in not getting the hint and my platonic guy friends trying to shift themselves into relationships or booty calls.

Why do I have such a hard time rejecting men?

I have issue with rejection in general. I know what it's like to go through it and I know it's a major blow to the ego for most of us. I also know it's part of life and something we're all going to experience if we put ourselves out there and we need to learn to accept that.

I try to cushion it. Because I'm too nice.

And I don't mean "too nice" like, awww, I'm such a sweetie, I care about everyone's feelings because I'm such a great, kind-hearted person (that was written in my head with a nasally, syrup-dripping voice, by the by).

No, I'm a pussy. I'm a little too empathetic to rejection, I think, and it makes me cringe and then I feel guilty and I hate feeling guilty so I do my best to avoid rejecting people so I don't have to feel guilty about it later.

That sort of "too nice". Stupid "too nice". Avoidant "too nice".

And one would think I would have learned by now how to manage this unwanted male interest.

Quite obviously, that's incorrect.

What I have learned is that if you tell someone flat out that you aren't interested, they have to know why.

They will demand an explanation.

And you might be reading this going, "Well, they can demand all they want, but you don't have to give it to them."

This is true.

However, they storm off all butthurt and never speak to you again. And I like my guyfriends. Most of this will happen within the first month or two of a budding platonic relationship with a guyfriend. You want to be able to salvage the friendship and their ego.

Why should you salvage the friendship?

I don't know about you, but I like having friends. I like having a variety of friends across the board that I can hang out with and learn from and just have a good time.

So, if you give them the explanation they are demanding in their fit of anger at your rejection (which is just a cover up for the insecurities you've just produced/exacerbated in them), then they have to argue that explanation.

Which means you are sitting there for god knows how long trying to explain not only why you don't want them, why they are still great guys (just not your type), but also why it is okay for you not to want them.

In the end, they'll:

A: Get butthurt to cover their embarrassment and storm off, never to be seen again, which makes you wonder if the only reason they were around was to get into your pants or if they're just that hurt by it (common).
B: Get butthurt to cover their embarrassment and storm off, but come back later, ease into friendship again and have a solid thing going for the both of you (rare).
C. Tell you they understand, that they're okay being friends, but then they'll try to Nice Guy you for some time until there's an explosion and you kick them out of your life (I've had this happen, it is so not fun).
D. Tell you they understand, and then they respect your boundaries and the two of you frolic in happy sunshine friendship meadows with pink marshmellow unicorns and fluffy purple bunnies. (This never happens.)

So that's the direct approach that everyone tells me to take, that I have taken and have had miserable experiences with.

Or you can make up excuses as to why you can't date them in an effort to save their ego and your friendship:

1. You have a boyfriend. (Lying isn't my thing)
2. You're emotionally unavailable. (Refer back to demanding an explanation)
3. You've just had your heartbroken and aren't ready for another man in your life. (And... here comes Mr. Nice Guy again!)
4. You're much too busy right now for a relationship. (They'll try anyway.)
5. Your grandmother is on fire. (I've tried this, it only works for so long.)

The problem I've found with this sort of set up is that they'll either hang around, making contact, waiting for the "problem" to go away, or they'll check in with you every few weeks to see if the "problem" has resolved itself.

Eventually, the former may turn into an unsteady friendship, while the latter will just get frustrated and disappear.

So those are the basic verbal communicators.

Then we drop down into other categories.

Such as the slightly extreme: "making out with someone else in front of them". I've tried this. It doesn't always work. In fact, it seems to drive the nutty ones even nuttier.

You might think, "Well, you don't want the nutty ones for friends anyway", but I actually love being friends with nuts. Except pecans. Pecans are bitches.

Anyway.

There's the easy, Level One, "play stupid" when they hit on you. This is stuff that involves messing with words, pretending to mishear, pretending to think they're joking.

Level One also includes avoiding physical contact and moving out of the way if at all possible, as well as avoiding any flirting or innuendos.

Then there's the stereotypical: "oh, I'm so glad we're friends, I couldn't take it if another guy was interested in me right now" or "I'm so glad you don't want to date me, I can just relax around you" type comments.

There's the Level Two casual drops about guys you find attractive, guys that you're thinking of going out with.

Which can be escalated to Level Three conversation drops where you are really thrilled to be going out with this guy again, he's so good in bed, he's so cute, hold on, he's texting me, give me just a sec and I'll get back to you. (This is mildly difficult for me, as most of my guyfriends know that I when I date, I date multiple men and take a couple lovers until someone comes in and pulls me off the market entirely.)

Level Three conversation drops may be accompanied by Level Three physical withdrawal, which involves leaping away from any physical contact and running into the night shouting over your shoulder, "Is that the Bat Signal? Gordon needs me!" (I promise this is perfectly acceptable.)

And you might be thinking, "Christ, what's with the game playing? This is too annoying/difficult, this isn't worth it, is she nuts??"

But it's a preservation of their ego. This is me trying to send out as many signs as I possibly can to my friend (or my potential friend) that indicate that it is nothing to do with him. My lack of interest is not a failure on his part, but to do with my own life and attentions.

Because I want those friendships. They're important to me.

And not all of my guyfriends are like this. Most of them got the message early on, or had no observable interest in the first place (or had a girlfriend).

These guys that don't get the message are the ones that are a little awkward, or are just your general horndog. I make friends with all sorts of people, and some of them require this type of management. Sometimes it works, sometimes it goes down in flames.

I do my best, I think.

And, yes, I'll kick myself at times, thinking I should be rougher or more direct with some. But when you've had the experiences that I've had... I try to communicate thoroughly and honestly at all times. Playing these sort of dancing games is not my cup of tea. It's not enjoyable. I don't want to be doing this. I wish I could wave a magic wand and have them realize that my lack of desire for them has nothing to do with their value as a person, that I still have value for them, just not a need to get into their pants.

I'm told, and I can see, that it's wasting their time, to a degree.

But this is social interaction. This is learning to read body language and subtle cues that tell you what you are and are not doing right. If every approach failure was considered a waste of time, that would indicate that the approacher had learned nothing.

Even if you learn nothing, it's still good to approach, it's still good to steel yourself and get used to interacting with complete strangers as you attempt this mating dance.

And I am educational. I will, upon occasion, tell the guys that approach me better lines to use, or how to stand to present themselves better, or how to adjust their word choice to sound more attractive. If they listen to me or not, I don't know. But I am a girl they found attractive enough to approach, which means I am desirable, which means they should probably listen to my advice because I am telling them what I find desirable so they can use it on future women that are like me.

Even if they do not "score" with me, I have many female friends. Some guys look so into the immediate, they don't understand the value of leapfrogging and building social networks. If they come off as courteous and respectful, I will bring them into my various social circles, I will introduce them to my female friends and talk them up.

So is it a waste of time? At best, it's a wading pool of potential poon. At worst, it's practice.

Guys make it difficult to reject them, uncomfortable to reject them. I'm sure girls do it too, but since I'm fairly straight, that's all I have to tell them. They won't react poorly because my sexual orientation does not reject them, it simply excludes them. It's not personal.

Poor reactions based on insecurities.

This is why I have issues rejecting men and handling interest from my male friends.